©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
THE WAR CORP.
By Wayne Webb
CHAPTER 3.2
Through the doorway at the end of the fire
wall corridor there was a wide open and well lit space, one that rose higher
than the ceilings of the drop ship and the corridor that led to this wide
space. It was hard to see all the way across the space, as there were walls and
doorways in between the entry point and the exit, which was well lit and
beaming at them some distance away.
This was an obstacle course of some nature,
and the assumption had to be that it would be deadly and deceptive. A number of
different ways to reach the other side presented themselves, some riding high
above and some going into a kind of sublevel below the level of the doorway and
into darkness. There were also doors
that led to sections made from boxes that were randomly interspersed across the
room, and no clear path directly to the other side.
Each door had a number on it, and when the
recruits scanned it directly, the NINE would give them the clue that these
numbers were the maximum occupancy for recruits. If they were to take a
particular path then they would be limited to how many could go down each road.
This was going to force them to split the
team, and take different ways to the same end. There were five doors and now
sixteen recruits including him, so there were options open to him for
distributing the groups. Liam’s priorities were somewhat out of tune with the
team and he could not think of a good approach that would address what he saw
as the major problem with splitting the team.
Once he had chosen a door, he was blind to
the actions of the team. He had no
control over the choice of who would live or die, and that was what he wanted,
that was what he needed. That was what set him apart from the others, he had
three deaths up his sleeve and he wanted to use them most effectively.
What he had to do was appoint squads and
send them to the luck of the draw, whatever it was on the other side of the
doorways and whatever traps the Gauntlet had for them.
He looked at the doorways one last time, he
could effectively split the team into three groups and send five recruits at a
time into three different paths and then if they were canny, which the team was
quickly becoming, then they could potentially lose one recruit per set, which
would be the remaining three allowed, but then that would leave him no leeway
for the obstacles to follow. There would be more than these, he was sure of it.
The team was broken into three groups of
five, Brodie, Sharpe and Morris each taking four recruits apiece and that was
only Liam left standing. There were two doors with fives on them and one with
six, but his plan was still to send five through it. It was a maximum
occupancy, not the minimum to enter. Instead he would take a road alone, the
one that looked the safest was undoubtedly the worst and it stood to reason
that the one looking the most dangerous should be the easiest to traverse.
They could potentially all be equally
vicious and impossible to complete without a loss, but it was a chance he had
to take in some form to complete the Gauntlet objective, so he was happy to
risk himself, by himself.
The dark doorway that was set in the floor
was the most ominous looking and he left it to the Squad leader to pick the
path they wanted to take between them, then he just walked away and down the
black square to meet whatever fate the Gauntlet had for him.
It was pitch black and he could not see
anything at all in the complete absence of light once the door closed behind
him.
Liam walked on in the pitch black and made
no attempt to feel his way or to try and find any kind of advantage, the adjustment
to low light that he got in the corridor did not happen in here, there was no
light to adjust to, it was completely cut off from all external sources.
His foot brushed something and it moved
under the motion of his leg. The thing, whatever it was moved and was alive, it
scooted away from his position and made a curious little noise that sounded
confused or put out by the intrusion. Liam took a few more steps and
encountered more of the same creatures in there with him, each time they made a
startled noise and moved aside, as he picked his way through them as much as
possible in the complete darkness.
He stopped and tried to pick one of the
creatures up, feeling for its girth and weight as he tried to lift it. It
struggled and wriggled in his grasp before it broke free and ran away.
Liam could not tell what kind of thing it
was, and despite the intrusion he was making into their habitat it did not
attack or seem to care that he was there. Liam was disappointed, he expected
more from the Gauntlet. The floor must
have been littered with these beings; he started moving them aside with every
step and as the floor began to rise and he moved up hill the thickness of them
increased. Each step was moved from a lateral position and swept forward rather
than raised and placed downwards, wading more than stepping.
Eventually he reached the end of the under
floor section when a wall presented itself. The creatures were still layered on
thick and they became a hindrance as he tried to feel his way along the wall to
find a door. He moved back and forwards across the wall looking for the exit
but found nothing, possibly because of the animals that crowded the space so
completely.
Frustration overtook him on the third pass
and he picked up a creature and before it could get out of his grip he threw it
angrily in the opposite direction of the wall, sending it sailing into the dark
air unseen.
The creature yelped like it had been
attacked, and an odd growling sound rumbled in response from the floor. The
rumble grew to a growl
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