Star Force: Origin Series Box Set (5-8) Read online

  With multiple strands to spread out her weight, the slight angle didn’t provide her with much speed but it was sufficient to get her to the other side. Morgan let go with her left hand when her feet passed over the destination platform and dropped a meter to the ground, still clinging to the rope bundle in her right as she faced off with a control panel containing four buttons.

  She depressed the second one, opening a door elsewhere on the ‘ring out’ course where Zak was waiting. As soon as he was through Morgan took to the ladder leading both down from the platform and higher up to a cupola that overlooked the entire course. Pulling the rope bundle over her head and shoulder, she freed her right hand and swung around to the far side of the ladder and began climbing up the outside of the tower.

  This was the 4th time she’d run through this course with Zak, and the 8th time overall, having hit it twice with both Hank and Kevin who were also excellent climbers, but Zak was proving to be the best of the lot, and both of them wanted to shave as much time off their run as possible on the highly erratic obstacle course.

  Unlike most of the others they’d trained on, this ring out course had no set path to travel, but instead had multiple options that could be used to get to a finish platform where one of the trainees would have to ‘ring the bell’ so to speak. The problem was, traversing the multiple paths required cooperation and coordination between the pair, meaning one of them couldn’t run on ahead of the other to finish early.

  Both trainees had been given a single rope, in addition to the use of their hands, feet, and brains to get through the course in as short a time as possible. Morgan had spent more than two hours of her challenge time watching others on the course, learning where the triggers were and mentally planning out the fastest route to the finish. The trick of it was, the quicker paths contained the greater hazards, and even one fall off the elevated platforms and walkways would disqualify the pair and they’d have to start over again.

  The less difficult paths were long, winding, repetitive challenges designed to eat up time and make the trainees prove their balance when fatigued, and most of the pairs attempting this run to date had been forced into the easy or medium paths out of sheer necessity, for their climbing skills weren’t reliably up to par, and with so many Tandem challenges to get through, they weren’t willing to spend multiple days trying over and over again hoping for a lucky run.

  Neither was Morgan, which was why she’d been planning her run out ahead of time, then selecting the trainees who she thought best fit the obstacles…which in this case meant the best climbers. She’d gotten no refusals when she requested pairings, for this challenge or the others, for it seemed all of the other trainees were eager to team up with the current #1 in order to up their own scores...though she didn’t figure that Paul would be so eager to pair up on the naval challenges, given that he was trying hard to catch her in points, so she hadn’t asked.

  Instead, she’d chosen the next best candidate, Liam, and had worked with him on two of the 5 naval challenges so far with moderate success, hoping to negate as much of Paul’s advantage as possible when he eventually got around to his strong suit. He was apparently saving those challenges for last, to keep her from measuring up the points differential, no doubt, and figuring out how much of an advantage she needed in other areas for a counterbalance.

  It was a good idea, she grudgingly had to admit, because it kept her in the dark as to what she actually needed to do, and Morgan worked best when she had a challenge to analyze and overcome. Still, she had come into the Tandems with a points lead and had been padding it ever since by doing her homework and matching up potential teammates’ skills with the various challenges, mixing and matching with specialists rather than finding one buddy to attack everything with…such as Paul and Jason were doing.

  It was true that they were at the top of the Tandem ranks, but Morgan was scoring more points than they were…so far. Again, those pesky naval challenges were going to throw a skiffer into her plans when the dynamic duo got around to tackling them, not only because of Paul’s innate skill in that area, but because Jason also ranked in the naval top 10, making their pairing all the more potent in that subcategory.

  Paul’s other pairings hadn’t given him much better results than he scored with Jason, though there were a few exceptions. It puzzled her why he wasn’t seeking out better partners to maximize his scores. He had to have seen her points lead over him growing…or was he just convinced that the naval challenges would put him over the edge in the end?

  Or maybe he just wanted to maximize the team link that he and Jason already possessed. Morgan had found it easier to pair up with her 6s teammates than the others, obviously due to experiential familiarity, and it was said that Paul and Jason did almost everything together, even before the Tandem challenges had begun, so maybe they were onto something.

  Morgan didn’t have the option of finding that out for herself…she’d always been more of a lone wolf, fully capable of working with her teammates but never establishing any favorites. She worked well with everyone, adjusting to the mission requirements accordingly, but had never seen the advantage of having a ‘best friend’ to team up with on everything. In her mind, she wanted the best available, and sticking with the same person would have been inefficient at times.

  Apparently Paul didn’t think so, or else he simply hadn’t considered it. Either way, they were going to have a chance to test the various approaches over the next month…and so far, hers was proving to be superior.

  She and Zak had already bested Paul and Jason’s top score on this course, and it didn’t look like they were going to be back for seconds, meaning that whatever points they could scrape up on this run would be pure bonus to both of them. Zak was currently 34th in individual points, with half a dozen other trainees in close proximity, so any significant point swings could propel him upwards in the ranks in short order, which was why he was busting his butt on this course, wanting to make the most out of this opportunity that Morgan had given him.

  By the time she climbed up through the floor of the elevated cupola Zak was working his way across a pillar field, stepping carefully and repetitively with short hops as he approached the halfway point where the elevation and sizes of the pillars began to vary. As he made the transition Morgan had to give him credit on his agility. He slowed a bit, but maintained his rhythm, crossing the path far faster than Morgan could…assuming she didn’t fall off altogether. Her agility was above average, but Zak’s was downright incredible.

  Inside the cupola was another slide, this one at less of an angle, much like a waterslide but dry as a bone and slippery shiny. Morgan had to go there next, but she had to wait for Zak to get to the end of the pillars because the trap door at the finish was triggered by the button on her left, allowing him to take a significant shortcut on the course.

  As soon as he hopped off the last pillar Morgan hit the button, then dived feet first into the chute, trusting that Zak wouldn’t delay. The trap door was on a four second timer, and if he missed it he’d have to backtrack through the pillars and go around another way, because Morgan couldn’t get back to the cupola again from where she was going.

  Her faith was well placed, and the moment that the door in the floor slid aside horizontally Zak knelt down and slithered through, hanging for a moment from the edge, then his hands disappeared a full 2 seconds before the panel began to slide back across.

  He dropped down two meters onto a wobble-board, balancing on a center post and tipping sideways depending on where Zak put his weight, making it very hard to stay on his feet…and off the edges of the four meter wide square was open space, below which were more red disqualification pads.

  Zak landed more or less in the center and dropped to a knee, using both his legs and hands to grip the surface. He spied the exit ladder at the tip of one of the corners of the square and maneuvered himself around to face it, then ran forward for two steps, feeling the floor drop out beneath him. He managed a half j
ump at the tip, enough to propel him out to the ladder, stepping onto it and snaking his arms through the rungs as one of his feet slipped. The wobble-board reset above him, revealing a second platform underneath it which Zak quickly climbed down to, hopping off the ladder at the very bottom in a back flip, landing on his face and chest hard, but safely on the platform.

  He rolled up onto his feet and ran through a short tunnel into an empty room with high walls and no handholds to climb up…a dead end.

  Off to his left a rope suddenly appeared, dropping down over the edge of the wall but with no one visibly holding it. Zak didn’t waste any time and walked up the wall, climbing hand over hand up the rope until he got to the top and saw Morgan standing behind another small pole with the rope looped around it multiple times as an anchor.

  “Got it,” he said as soon as he got his footing at the top, with Morgan immediately letting go and running off down a narrow walkway with meters of open air on either side of her should she slip and fall off. She hopped over a gap as if it wasn’t even there and started climbing a tethered rope up to the top of a pole that had an extended eyelet on the opposite side.

  Zak appeared beneath her with their own rope and waited for her to shimmy her way across the top bar until she was hanging underneath it with her hands inches away from the eyelet. Suddenly their own rope appeared in her vision as she stared up at the not so distant ceiling, with it crossing over her body and landing draped over both her and the pole thanks to Zak’s well aimed toss.

  Hanging by her left hand and crossed legs, Morgan grabbed the opposite side of the rope and hefted it up in bursts, letting it slide through her fingers then gripping it tightly so it wouldn’t fall back through as she fought to find the end. When she did she poked it through the eyelet and fed it down until Zak could grab it.

  “Clear,” he yelled, rapidly pulling the rope through to even up the strands.

  Morgan waited until the rope stopped moving and drew taught before she wrapped her fingers around both cords at the same time and used the leverage to drop down off the pole and wrap her legs around the rope, as well as getting her second hand on it before she began sliding down.

  The weight on the bottom of the rope suddenly dropped off, but Morgan had a firm grip on both strands so she didn’t fall as one slipped, but she did have to climb down more slowly.

  When she moved past the platform the pole sprung from, she saw a solid wall for about a meter, then a second smaller platform underneath where Zak was standing. She swung over a bit and he grabbed a hold of her outstretched hand, pulling both her and the rope over to solid ground. As soon as she let go he began reeling in one strand of the rope, with the other shooting back up towards the eyelet.

  Almost there, Morgan thought to herself as she began walking across a short balance beam to the underside of the finish platform, bypassing a huge wall that separated it from the easier access routes. When she made it across Zak was already two steps behind her with rope in hand and they spied the last obstacle.

  There was a gap, too far to jump, underneath the floor of the finish platform that led to a ladder that would bring them up through a trap door three steps away from the ‘bell.’ On that side of the gap was a large hook, open side up, at approximately head level.

  Zak tied a knotted loop at the end of the rope and handed it to Morgan…then grabbed her around the waist for support as she side-armed the loop towards the hook.

  She missed low, reeled in the rope, and adjusted her aim. The second throw hit high and dropped down, barely catching the hook but it was enough. Morgan pulled the slack out of the rope as Zak let go of her and snaked the other end around the center mast that was supporting the platform above them.

  Morgan and Zak pulled as hard as they could, making the rope taut and tying it off, but there was no eyelet on this end, and they knew that once they put their weight on it, it was likely to slide down…how much so was the question.

  Zak stood underneath the knot on the rope and pressed his hands up against the loops around the pole, attempting to keep them secure as Morgan climbed up on the rope and began shimmying across.

  Her weight dragged down the taut rope, but Zak kept the loss of height to a few inches until she made it across, only to have it lower half way down the mast when he climbed on, forcing him to slither uphill, which was why they’d decided for him to go second, as he was by far the better climber.

  There wasn’t anything for Morgan to do but wait as she watched the rope dip lower and lower, with Zak now hanging below floor level, but as he approached he slowly gained altitude, having to wrench his body up along the rope until he was within reach of the platform. He let go of his legs and swung down, with Morgan pulling him away from the edge.

  Leaving the rope behind, they walked over to the ladder and sidestepped to two small panels set on either side. As one, they pressed the dual activation buttons and the trap door above them opened.

  Zak literally leapt up the ladder and disappeared, with the blue-lighting shift and finish tone sounding before Morgan could even get halfway up the ladder. When her head got past the floor she shot a glance at the clock, noting a 26 second improvement over their previous best, which also put them in 2nd place on the course record board, 2.3 seconds behind Mike and Taryn.

  Zak offered her a fist bump when she finally got up the ladder, which she deftly returned.

  “Nice working with you,” Zak said gratefully.

  “My pleasure,” Morgan said with a smile, mentally adding the points gained to her lead over Paul.

  3

  Three days later…

  Paul and Jason were ducked down behind a barricade in one of the ‘indoor’ paintball training chambers, one of their original training zones before transitioning into the parks more than a year ago. This one was a series of circles expanding out from the start area in the center of the room, with the finish pedestal located somewhere beyond the barricades on the outer ring, and it was never in the same position challenge to challenge.

  The mission was to fight their way past the turret pillars to the outer ring and find the pedestal, all the while watching out for rovers and the occasional sniper hidden within the forest of pillars, as well as hidden bunkers in the outer walls.

  Paul and Jason had progressed out to ring three in an easterly direction, deactivating the turrets in their path using their binary rifles…each contained the usual stingers, but Paul’s red paintballs and Jason’s purple contained additional energy signatures, and the turrets would only deactivate with sufficient stun energy applied plus each signature within a 1.5 second window, meaning not only did they have to fire several shots into each target sphere, they had to coordinate their final shots to arrive at almost the same time, else they’d just be wasting paint.

  That was something they couldn’t afford to do, given their limited ammunition. Each rifle held hundreds of stingers, but there were far too many turrets present for them to take them all out, meaning the pair had to cut a path to the outer ring, then circle around the perimeter in search of the finish pedestal rather than mowing down every turret in sight…which fortunately stayed deactivated in this challenge, but progressing past the various barricade rings wouldn’t deactivate the others on the same ring, so each and every turret in their path had to be taken down.

  Paul and Jason had little trouble with the turrets, however, and were progressing quickly through the pillars on their first attempt, firing with uncanny accuracy and coordination. The accuracy was due in part to having trained on this range and others like it, and they knew what angles they needed to make and how to distract the turrets so their teammate could target them, but normally they had 10 trainees on the field, not two, so the fact that this pair had entered the chamber with no noticeable adjustment period raised a few eyebrows from the trainers up in the control room.

  But it was their coordination of fire that was the most unnerving. Even when separated and out of sight, they would fire on targets almost simultaneo
usly, as if they were communicating through comm gear…though they had none. One of them would pop up out of cover, fire off two rounds, at different turrets, and duck back down just as the other one would add his shots to those two turrets plus three more, then the other one would come up and target the same turrets, though he hadn’t seen which ones his teammate had shot.

  Other times they would both emerge from cover, running side to side between barricades and nail distant turrets in sync, often putting their stingers’ paint splatters one on top of the other so fast that the colors actually mixed…and by the time the turrets tracked their way they’d scurried off out of sight again.

  By the time they made it to the 11th ring it was becoming clear that the only way to stop them was by using the rover and the snipers, hidden in the wall niches, but they had to wait until they got close enough, because the overlapping pillars cut off their view of the start area.

  While they waited, the control room piloted the rover down through the rings towards the pair in an attempt to flush them out, with the nearby turrets all tracking the same direction, waiting for their prey to emerge. One of the snipers had a line of sight on the rover, with it passing in and out of view as it moved laterally across the 12th ring towards the spot where they’d last seen the trainees.

  In the control room there were no overhead cameras, so as to not give the trainers any undue advantage, only viewscreens coming from the turrets’ and the rover’s onboard cameras…but there was a schematic of the course with the turret positions highlighted in blue, with a line of them gone dark where Paul and Jason had moved out through the rings. Just before the rover got to their position, several more turret icons went out, expanding a spherical dead zone around the endpoint of the line rather than extending it out into the 12th and 13th rings.