“Everyone, small change of plans, I do not wish to waste my time or the other corporals' time by waiting for every single one of you to fail this course again, most of your performances were unimpressive at best. If you hear your name called up, step up. You will be the ones allowed to compete for the prize.”
Shouting that to the pack, Leya the corporal in charge of the obstacle course grabbed a paper handed to her by one of the privates behind her and continued.
“Leo, Pesté, Wilson, Zoraya, you four, that's it”
A series of mumbles, mixed with some sighs of relief and some groans of annoyance followed. Some of the kids were definitely happy that they weren't gonna be forced to go through this again, but others like Mayla were clearly disappointed. I turned to her and as if reading my mind she told me how she felt.
“Fuck, thought I'd get a second chance. Just made a fool of myself on the first try. Not the impression I wanted to fucking give.”
I could understand how she felt. Those that felt relieved at not going for it again didn't understand what the Corporal's words really meant. This wasn't just about the prize, she's saying ‘as of right now, none of you are worth my time’. They said everyone still fit by the end of the 6 months period will get assigned in the military, so maybe most didn't feel the need to be a standout. But our performances will decide our assignment, and I doubt they will get a decent post if they do stay anonymous. Mayla understood that, but the 6 months are still long.
“Don't worry, 6 months are long, you'll get your shot, hell even today we're barely a third of the way through.”
She nodded, whispering a ‘give them hell’ to my back. Satisfied I stepped up and joined the other 3. Leo, I identified as the recruit in his late teens that was the first to give a good showing at the course, and was the one with the least failures out of those that had any. The other two, like me, had completed the course with no mistake, Wilson was the one I worried the most about, he's looked the calmest in hsi completion of the course. Zoraya was the name of the only girl to make it through without a hitch. She likely came to one of the planets with very hot weather due to her very dark skin. Her black hair barely went below the neck, its shape resembling that of a wave pointing down. What struck as the most interesting feature of her face though was her green eyes. They contrasted every other aspect of her body. Similar to everyone else in the group, except maybe myself, her muscles were very well defined, though not imposing. Scared that I'd be caught staring too much, I shifted my sight back to the Corporal.
Didn't take long before Leo, the first of us 4, stepped forward. A bruise on his arm had formed, likely from his fall on the cylinders obstacle from his first run. He seemed less confident than before, but didn't take too long before jumping on the first obstacle. As expected, he got through the first half of the course without much of a problem, but one thing was clear, his arm wasn't fully healed. He clearly tried to hide it, but looking closely at his spider walk, I saw that he avoided applying pressure to his arm on the wall. His façade would collapse on the salmon ladder. As soon as he attempted the first threshold he already slipped and fell. Only one of his arms properly rose and he lost grip on the bar, falling down and hence his run ending. The Corporal called him back and he went back in line, his head hung slightly low, despite a nod of approval from Corporal Leya.
I was next. My goal was completion. Strategically, now that Leo hadn't finished the course, I had the opportunity to set the starting bar for the others to surpass. As long as I didn't go too slowly, instead just progressing at my first attempt's pace, maybe with just slightly less downtime and with cleaner execution, I'd add pressure to the 2 that would follow my attempt. Everything started off as expected, I had recovered enough energy so going through the first half was almost routine. I had no problem the first time round, I didn't have any this time as well. My pace was steady and I was keeping up easily with my first attempt. I finally got to the salmon ladder, this was where I started faltering last time. I didn't think about it as much this time and jumped onto the first bar almost as soon as I got off the previous obstacle. I knew the movement so I just went for it. Every jump made my muscles burn more, but this wasn't the first time I had to ignore my bodies’ warnings so I knew how to do that. Afterall, that's how you survive on the outskirts. I went through all the thresholds and when I got to the last one, breathed a sigh of relief and jumped onto the next platform.
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I was now ahead of my first attempt's pace which I'm sure would set a competitive bar. The cylinders, while they originally were the exercise that scared me the most, now posed me less of a threat due to having already gone through it. Much like the first time, I skipped a few holes to finish up as soon as possible, and frankly it was pretty quick. I reached the final rope and didn't even allow myself the time to breathe out. I was through the hard part, but I wanted to make sure now I could finish everything. I climbed up until the very end and pressed the button to signal the end of my attempt. I hadn't run at the start and kept a confident pace. I was overall happy with myself.
“3 minutes and 42 seconds, Wilson, Zoraya, that's your benchmark to beat.”
The Corporal cut into my thoughts, and hearing her spell out my final time made me grin in a satisfied manner. I went down and rejoined the pack. Mayla gave me an approving look. It looked like she wanted to say something, but by then Wilson was already at the starting blocks so both our attentions ended up turning to him.
His start was impressive to say the least. Unlike myself, he took a few more risks, his pace clearly superior to his first attempt and to my bar set earlier. By the time he reached the slackline he was already 30 seconds ahead of myself and that time just grew. He was quick on the slackline, taking an approach similar to that of Mayla, yet, unlike her, he didn't fall, instead he kept his precision up until the very end. Made it through the ramp, scaled down the wall and easily went through the salmon ladder though he slowed down his pace by then. In fact, while the ease stayed, his latter half of the course was actually of similar pace to myself, seemingly, he relied on the time gained in the first half, which was smart. He’d rather push it in the easy bit than the harder one. He made it through the cylinders and the rope climb with little struggle and as he pressed the concluding button, I knew I was already knocked off the top spot.
“Better luck next time, you owe me some food now.”
Apparently Mayla had determined that the prize was food related, and had also assumed that apparently I needed to give her a part of it. So when Wilson got his result of 2 minutes and 53 seconds, she was almost as disappointed as myself.
“As if you were getting any, make it to the finals this time”
I added a sarcastic grin to get the message across that I wasn't all that serious with my statement, but she still pouted a bit, clearly still disappointed in her previous result. The same that happened with Wilson happened here as well though, as I was about to reply our conversation was caught short with Zoraya’s start of the attempt.
Her pace was on par with Wilson in the first half and he was on pace to beat Wilson after a quick salmon ladder, but now came the harder part. She took off on the cylinders and unlike Wilson who had slowed down by then, she kept up her staggeringly quick pace. It looked like she was gonna get through this obstacle with ease, but in just a split second her grip slipped. She was about to reach a point she could jump off, but she missed the insert for the cylinder and her hand let go of the previous one. She went crushing down, the spectators had barely enough time to react that a cloud of dust was already filling the area. It was an ugly sight, her right arm was badly mangled, she had likely fallen on it, her expression was dark, likely internalizing a lot of the pain. A few seconds passed as more and more people shifted their look to her mangled arm, yet none of the military personnel present moved. Eventually Zoraya stood up and looked at the Corporal.
“I'd like to be allowed to be dismissed to go to the infirmary, sorry for the inconvenience.”
Mayla had quite the look of shock, and I doubt mine was much different. It seemed as if this sort of injury was a normal sight for her. She also likely wasn't alone, there was quite the number of unperturbed faces around myself. I'd have to inquire what planet she was from down the line.
“Permission granted, scram”
The corporal gave a quick reply and Zoraya was off. Just like that, the obstacle section of our assessment day at the academy had ended. Wilson punched the air in happiness after having his win confirmed. I was a bit sad, but I made quite the impression so I’m still satisfied. I had snuck glances at the other assessment groups, and they looked a lot less intense so it looked like the rest of the day was going to be a lot less lower stress luckily.