Chapter 14: Feathers and String

We spent our first day of training climbing back up the walls of the canyon that we had climbed down the day before.

We were issued rock climbing gear: ropes, pulleys, clips, fasteners, wedges, a whole new world of tools I'd never seen before, including harnesses for everyone to wear over their armor. Our Yaru teammates even had harnesses designed especially for them.

The first time through we were assigned a mountaineering specialist. Ours was named Dave. He helped us learn how to use the new gear we had been issued. Everything from tying knots to how to use the pulleys, clips and other items we had been given.

We learned very quickly that two people, even with armor boosted strength could barely pull a full grown Yaru up a cliff. Even with tools, it took us three hours to climb the canyon. At the top our mountaineer told us we would have to wait until all four quads were on the rim before the transport would pick us up. Each quad would be dropped off in a new location and we would make a second climb.

We were the second of our quads to make the top, and it took another hour for the transport to show up. Ali told me her Quad had had it easy. They practically walked all the way to the top.

On the ride down I looked at the sixteen of us and realized I had messed up the first time through.

"Listen up!" I said into the passenger bay.

"Its my fault, but we did this all wrong. We should have tackled this problem as a Force, not as four Quads. Once you're at your drop off point, Make an evaluation of your possible climb routes then check your PerCom for my flag. We will link up and look over our four routes. We'll form up on the one we agree looks like it has the easiest assent and we'll tackle this canyon as a team of sixteen."

We were dropped off in the reverse order in which we finished. Only Ali's Quad had beaten us to the top, so they got dropped off last.

It became apparent very quickly that our location was not a good one. We had several really difficult spots, no matter what route we came up with. We picked the best one we could find and prayed that one of the other Quads had a better site.

Once we had a link up between us, the other three Quad leaders and I looked over the route data. It looked like Coldrun's Quad had the best route, not quite as easy as Ali said there's had been the first time, but certainly easier than our Quad's first. I had Coldrun set his beacon and we dropped the link.

"Coldrun's Quad has the route we want, so were homing on him. Follow me." Coldrun's drop point was up river from us, and as we started out I mapped the fastest route I could find and we ran!

It took twenty minutes to get all four Quads relocated to Coldrun's section of canyon wall, but this time, with four Quad's worth of rope and eight pair of arms, we were up the canyon wall in less than an hour. We were back at the base in time for midday mess.

The Yaru have an odd digestive system. As big as they are, they only eat every three days. Granted, when they do eat, its a very big meal! Because of that they don't really share the mess with us, but they usually hang out during the meal to participate in the chatter, and certainly the mess is laid out to accommodate them, just like everything else in camp. Skid tells me they prefer their food 'fresh', which is the currently acceptable euphemism at camp for alive. I will go watch them at one of their feedings before we leave camp, but not yet.

After the midday mess we were given a new set of ropes and lines and hustled aboard another transport. This time we were taken to a heavily forested mountain valley somewhere and dropped beside a deep, fast running river.

"Find whatever floats best, build a raft and get yourselves twenty miles downstream." Sergeant Yashida said from the hatch of the transport.

We began examining the trees of the nearby forest, but as we were, I had a thought. I looked at Frost. She saw me looking and decided there was something going on.

"What?" She asked.

"It'll probably piss you off, I shouldn't even suggest it."

"What!" She repeated with some force this time.

"Well I was just remembering our trip down the canyon river the day we met. You and Skid struck me as the most buoyant things I'd ever seen."

"Oh my!" She said before she began laughing in that Yaru thundering rumble.

She called Coldrun over.

"Kru remembered something we did the other day when the Quads were formed, and it gave him an idea. The most buoyant things in this valley are us Yaru, when we choose to be."

"Shit!" Coldrun spat in surprise.

"He's..."

"Yeah, I know, He's right!" Coldrun said. "I'm just pissed because I've been a Yaru a lot longer than he has, I should have thought of it first.

So that's what we did. We gathered a bunch of the small thin trees that seemed to grow only near the river and used them to make two flat pads that would fit atop four Yaru, puffed out to their most buoyant. The trick was making harnesses that we could fasten the pad to so it wouldn't slip off their backs. It took us an hour. Once again Vic's not-so-ill-spent youth in the Boy Scouts came in handy. He remembered knots the mountaineer hadn't shown us that really came in handy in lashing the saplings together.

The nameless river was fast, deep and cold. Fortunately, the more buoyant the Yaru made themselves, the more insulated from the cold they were. We had one small waterfall, fifteen feet or so, and we dealt with it by simply lowering the pads first and then jumping in after them. It took us only ninety minutes to cover the twenty miles downstream to the beacon.

As the first team in, we wound up eating evening mess by ourselves in the mess hall. We saw Force Leader Gomen and his Quads marching up to the mess hall as we were leaving. He pulled me aside for a moment and we had a quick chat.

"It sounds like we had the same idea about the Yaru, you just thought of it quicker than we did. Congratulations."

I told him how my Quad had happened to have a chance to experience the Yaru buoyancy on assignment day, explaining away our ingenuity as luck.

"I hear the other two Forces are still climbing the canyon walls." Gomen said.

I let him take off to get a meal with his crew, caught up with my own and headed back to the barracks. Sergeant Yashida must've been waiting for us, because as soon as we walked in the door he put us all on spit and polish detail. This meant the Yaru mostly got to haul bags of trash or containers around for the rest of us, and it was frustrating them, I could see.

"Its too bad we don't have some way to give the Yaru hands, or something that could serve the same purpose." I said to Seargeant Yashida. "When the fighting starts, their advantages will serve them well, but there seems to be a lot of frustration involved in not being able to participate, even if it is sweeping and mopping."

"It may be grunt work, but they are grunts after all?" The Sergeant asked me.

"Yeah something like that I guess." I answered back. Then I got busy again. Being Force Leader didn't exempt me from cleaning.

A couple of hours later, with the barracks and our new gear cleaned and inspected, the Sergeant called us all together.

"As of today, I am officially moving myself and my duties to the Battalion HQ with Major Sweet and Craft. Force Leader Kru, you will take over my quarters and assume responsibility for this facility, just as you have for these four Quads and the Warriors in them."

"Yes sir!" I answered.

"You may have already heard that the other two Force teams led by Sanderson and Woj were still being run up the canyon walls. This is now only true for Sanderson's unit. Force Leader Woj finally saw the light about an hour ago, and his Force just completed the climb as a unit. Perhaps it is obvious now, but that was the real point of the entire exercise."

"Yes sir!" we answered together.

"Janes! What was the real point of the river exercise?"

Janes thought about it for a second. "Sir! That Yaru can float?" He answered finally.

"No!" Sergeant Yashida yelled. "Frost! What is the correct answer!"

"Sir! That we need to acknowledge our own weaknesses and understand each others strengths!"

"Correct!" The Sergeant yelled one last time, then in a softer voice, continued on.

"We are assembling an army here, and the pieces we are using have very different characteristics. You do well to ignore the differences when they don't matter, but you do even better to remember them when they do." He turned to me then and smiled! The first smile I'd ever seen from him.

"Force Leader Kru, you and your Force, as well as Force Leader Gomen, s crew have now officially completed your introduction to Basic. Combat training will commence the day after tomorrow. Do you know why that is?"

"No Sir!" I answered.

"That is because as of this minute, you and your Force are on leave." Man, that got a spontaneous cheer from the room! Sergeant Yashida even ignored the fact that we had interrupted him.

"Check in at the transit pad, you will get instructions there. Those of you from Precipice, please follow me. The rest of you are dismissed!"

"Yes sir!" The room answered. Eleven excited Warriors were off like a shot for their bunks. Sergeant Yashida led us to his former quarters, where I would soon be depositing my meager possessions.

"We understand that you Preci are looking forward to the day when you too can go home. Since you cannot join your fellow Warriors, we have families on Taluat, Meadow and even Earth who have asked to host you for your day of leave, and treat you to home cooking and perhaps a day of fun and relaxation."

I saw my fellow Preci looking at me, waiting for my decision.

"Of course." I said. I took a shower and brushed my teeth, just like the rest of them, but while I was moving my gear to my new quarters I tapped a link to the Sergeant, and told Him I wasn't going, I only said yes because I saw the others wouldn't go unless I did. He said that was fine, and we would tell the rest that I was going with him in a separate transport.

I actually did wind up going with the Sergeant.

"Kru, I will not have my Force Leader eating in the mess hall on the eve of what may well be his only day of R&R between now and the fall of the Sh'kxu!"

I got to go eat dinner with a room full of Sergeant. A room full of Sergeants. I said a ROOM FULL OF SERGEANTS!!!

I might as well have been struck blind, deaf and dumb for about the first half hour or so, but then something dawned on me. These people seemed to be acting like regular guys! Well, except for Sergeant Fernandez. You would never mistake her for a guy, coming or going!

The place they took me for dinner was on Taluat, a club in the city of Sheye called the Event Horizon. Dinner was rather a drawn out affair compared to what I was used to. First of all, there was something called 'Green Hills Spruce Tip Amber'. Then there were the women!

This wasn't normally a dinner place, it served alcoholic drinks and had a band that played music, which people danced to! I found out very quickly that my uniform made me a special guest, and that meant there were an awful lot of women here who were interested in dancing with me. With a dozen Sergeants grinning at you and telling you to get out there and give it a whirl, I found it hard to say no.