Free Atlas by Isaac Hooke Page B

holding up the middle of the stretcher from here though, bearing some of the weight. Damn it, Nathan.
    When Jason reached the deck he lost his grip on one handle and the stretcher tilted to the side. Tahoe banged his side on the bulkhead.
    "Gah!" Tahoe said. "Careful, bitches!"
    I saw one of the petty officers watching from the catwalk above, and I cringed, expecting to get another strike.
    But it wasn't me who got the penalty.
    "Recruit Filberg!" the petty officer's voice floated down from above. "Strike for failing to observe proper safety protocols."
    " What? " Nathan slid down the ladder. "This sucks! I didn't do anything!"
    "That's exactly right, you didn't do anything," the petty officer said. "You should have gone down when Astronaut Recruit Galaal asked. They needed you down there."
    "Yeah whatever." Nathan shoved a shoulder under the stretcher, finally taking up his share of the burden. "Let's go before that asswipe throws some other stupid citation at me." He said that loud enough for the petty officer to hear. Probably not the best idea to insult the officers who were grading you.
    When we finally got back, the test was reset—different people were assigned as rescuers, scouts, casualties, corpsmen and defenders. We repeated the test four times, and at the end of it I'd played nearly every role. The total cumulative extraction times of each team were tallied, and Yellow team edged us out by about three minutes. As reward, no member of Yellow had to carry a spacebag to the next evolution.
    I ended up being saddled with one of the spacebags again, and it was all I could do to concentrate on the man in front of me and listen to the cadence to ensure I kept formation.
    "Everywhere we go-o."
    " Everywhere we go-o. "
    "People wanna know-o."
    "People wanna know-o."
    By the time we arrived at our destination through the blizzard, my vision was filled with floaters and I just wanted to collapse. I staggered inside the building and tossed the spacebag into the pile beside the door.
    "Jeez, Rade, you look terrible." Alejandro tossed aside his own spacebag. He had icicles on his eye-brows.
    "You know it." I gave him a fist bump.
    I paused to take in my surroundings, and I realized where we were: the Weapons Simulator building.
    The rangemaster came forward, the stock of a simulated rifle slung over his shoulder. We mustered immediately, and he paced among our front rank. "So. Those darn Sino-Koreans have struck again. Tore a hole in your hull during a surprise attack, they did. And guess what? The goshdarn varmints have boarded. You'll have to wear your SCBAs. Not safe with a hull breach on the ship, it ain't. Artificial gravity is still active though, and the radiation shielding is still up, so you don't need full hazmat suits. Lucky you. I know, it don't make sense, because if there were an actual hull breach you'd need the full suits. But hey, this is Battle Stations, and they don't want you to use the full suits till later tonight. Shooting with an SCBA on will be tricky enough as it is, don't you worry.
    "Anyhoo, you're going to shoot twenty simulated rounds at the target, while observing full safety precautions, you hear? I don't want any mistakes. I'm not in the greatest of moods tonight, so I might just give out three strikes for a minor infraction. Anyway, you've all fired rifles before so this should be a cakewalk: Don't be letting down your teammates by missing targets or failing to observe safety protocols. And don't be letting the sights and sounds of the battle distract you. Show us what you're made of! Show us your mettle! I want you to prove to me that you know what honor, courage, and commitment mean. Red team shoots first. Go!"
    We were given one minute each to don a SCBA (Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus). Miss any step, or fail to complete all steps within the allocated sixty seconds, and we got a strike. We went forward in groups of fifteen.
    I was in the group that went first. I approached the SCBA