Kyle Aarons

Adventure Quest

Chapters 11-13

Jasper move up to the podium as the kids were eating lunch and looked over the assembled group. What he saw was quite a bit different than what he had witnessed at Breakfast. Instead of every kid buried in his or her own note-puter, there were several who had started to work together. It was clear, even before he made announcements, of who had decided to take what tests. Many of them already knew, and were already working with others, to get ready. He glanced over to Robin who was inhaling a massive plate of food, while others from his group had already finished their meals and were talking to others they would be testing with.

There was no question the boy had the Gift and a lot of it. The young man also had control. The Water Purification Test was the most important test and it had been rigged with a multitude of small pitfalls. Over the past ten years it had a failure rate of 88% the first time through. But Robin had aced it, scoring his third Outstanding and helped all the others with him to at least pass. The next hardest test had been the Wilderness First Aid and it too had been passed by all four students with three Outstanding marks in the same group, all of them approved by those in Explorer Corps science station. There was no question Robin had somehow bumped Gavin's readiness to where the boy had been ready for way more than the others.

Jasper scratched his ear and let the kids talk for a while before he squealed the microphone a couple of times. As all eyes turned to look at him, he let out a long breath, "I am sure most of you already know but we need another round of applause for Robin…" Jasper stared down at him while several kids openly clapped and a few others even whistled. There were still quite a few who didn't look happy, but the numbers were way less than they had been the day before.

"Boy… you are really starting to tick us off. Even when we sent your test up to command they said they had never seen anyone blow a test away like you did this morning. I don't know what we could do to make the test harder, but rest assured, once we ship all you out to your zones, we will spend the next two months trying to figure out a way to make future test takers hate you. As it is, Commander Sandra Hollister of Zong Space Command has used her authority to field promote you to private. Should you choose to go to the academy you will be getting paid as one. Adrienne will be bringing you the rank and a pair of uniforms when they fly her down later today. Stand and take a bow or something, private."

Even while several kids chuckled over Jasper's comments, Robin waved his hands back and forth across each other while turning beet red. At the same time he was astonished how many seemed to genuinely be congratulating him.

Jasper then tapped his note-puter which pulled up an official Explorer Corps letterhead with names and number codes of six other students; after each name was a test and after each test was a grade. Five of the grades were Outstanding and one was Excellent. "Because of the sheer number of Outstanding marks we felt were owed, we also sent six other names up for review. Truth is, almost all Outstanding get reviewed, but in this case we decided to defer to those above us, especially since there was some disagreement between us on whether to award Excellent or Outstanding. In simple terms, these grades didn't come from us: they came from our bosses. All we did was submit recommendations. Gavin, you note your name has a star next to it.

"Commander Hollister says your quick thinking and you keeping your cool enough to properly splint Adrienne's ankle, even after finding out the whole thing was a trick was very impressive. Adrienne actually had a pair of micro cracks, but since you did such a fine job they were able to inject bone fusing protein into the foot before she moved it. Adrienne will be fine by tomorrow morning and you will be getting recruit pins when she comes back from medical to rejoin us. Furthermore, as you can see, your leadership allowed both Sara and Jared to be awarded Outstanding grades."

Jared let out a deep breath and looked over to Gavin, "I'm buying you a big meal when we get back to Dal-Houston!"

"I'll probably need a real one after three months having to live off the land," Gavin tried to joke to hide the fact he was very uncomfortable with the praise he was getting.

Another round of laughter rippled through the assembly of kids while the rest of Jared's team patted their friend on the back and gave Gavin a nod of appreciation.

Jasper also snickered, "You all may be hungry if Robin keeps eating the way his is today." He gave Robin a wink to show it was only meant in jest before he glanced back over his shoulder. "The other three names up here were all split decisions between original grader and reviewer so, like Jared's they were sent for automatic review. Oliver, you were darn close, but you made one slight mistake command and Ms. Reid couldn't overlook. I am sorry, but I have a strong feeling you will make the grade before the end of this week, especially with the help of your teammates; Ajax and Timothy, congrats, and welcome to the academy.

Timothy, also from Team Seventeen let out a long breath, "Like Jared does for Gavin, I owe you a big dinner once we get back to Earth, Ajax."

Ajax shrugged, "Being an SLO, I better be able to do good on basic survival."

While several eyes went wide at hearing Ajax's status, Timothy stood and walked over to him, "Man, you want a home, I'll get my parents to take you and Fairfax both. We'll even get you new numbers so you don't have the SLO designation." Timothy then looked around the room, "and if any of you plan on giving them any crap, you may as well give it to me too, cause I will stand up for them."

Patrick, the team leader for Jared and Timothy, stood. "So will the rest of Team Seventeen."

"As will my team," Ellen, the leader of team two spoke up. "We'd be down Adrienne if it wasn't for Gavin, so any of Team Five needs anything; you guys just come see us."

Ajax had to wipe away a couple of tears, "I pretty much plan on going to the academy since I made the grade, but thanks."

"Well, if you want a designation change and a new number, even if it you don't want a home, you let me know," Timothy stated. "Thanks to you, I plan on being at the academy right next to you, so it sounds like we will be academy bothers at least."

"Thanks," Ajax gave a smile and turned away knowing he was close to breaking down.

Jasper eyed Randy's team, but he didn't see nearly the hostility he expected from many of them. Randy, on the other hand looked absolutely furious. Jasper even considered contacting command to see about getting rid of Randy, but decided against it. There was still a chance the kid would turn his attitude around and become a team player. If not, he would try to get the others in his team to ask him to step down as leader. Something had to change before Randy ended up getting one of his team killed and Jasper knew it.

He let things settle some and read off assignments, noting quite a few of the kids who passed two tests already had elected to sit this round of testing out. He guessed Robin and Fairfax would have their hands full. He was a bit concerned since there wouldn't be any instructors around to supervise, but now Robin at least had some serious support from the likes of Jared, Timothy and Ellen and all of them had decided to sit out this round of testing.

He forced himself not to cringe at what this meant for the evening round of tests. He now had little doubt this training group would send more cadets to the Explorer Corps Academy than any other ever had.

Gavin left the mess hall early and took some time to be alone. He leaned back against the transport he and two others would take for the Emergency Communications test. Almost every part of him wanted to run back in and tell Jasper and Mr. O'Mally he had cheated. On the other hand, the reason for getting the extra award had not come from Robin's weird power. There had been no forewarning of the ankle injury and Jared had discovered the fake injury. The other thing was, Robin had really pushed himself to help. He couldn't throw away the help of his only true friend.

His thoughts were interrupted as Jason came up, "Dude, if I had just been told I was an Explorer Corps Recruit I think I'd look a lot happier then you do. You Okay?"

"I guess," Gavin gave a slight shake of his head. "I just think I got way more credit than I should have."

"I bet Adrienne will argue you didn't get enough. Jared said you were already air splitting the foot before she started asking about trying to go back to base with you all. The only reason she isn't headed home on a hospital ship is you prevented a worse injury."

"I know…" Gavin signed, "I guess I'll feel better once we score Outstanding on this test."

Jason cringed, "I talked to some of the others and they have no clue what more they could have done. I even reviewed some of their score sheets. Making matters worse, we have Mr. Allen…"

Mr. Allen came around the side of the transport, "And why, exactly, does having me make things worse?"

Gavin gulped, "Because you actually had to set up interstellar emergency comm. After all, you were stuck here once your lander malfunctioned and left you and your team stranded down here while your unmanned ship started to lose its geosynchronous orbit."

Mr. Allen gave a slight grunt and rubbed his chin, "Alright recruit, now answer me this. What did I do that, even though it worked, will get you an instant failure."

Gavin didn't hesitate with an answer, "Probably two things. First, you pulled the magnetic drive out of the lander. Second, you launched it with liquid rocket fuel you synthesized out of some of the geothermal fields to send an unmanned probe back to Earth to request rescue and inform the whole world you found a planet with life."

"Alrighty then, you do know your Explorer Corps History," Mr. Allen gave a hard nod. "You try anything along those lines during our test here today you go straight back to Earth, no questions, no excuses."

Sara came up with her pack. Seeing both Gavin and Jason snickering she looked a little nervous, "What did I miss?"

Jason rolled his eyes, "Just Mr. Allen telling us not to go hardcore explorer like he did when he first landed here."

"Hardcore, huh?" Mr. Allen eyed Jason with a smirk, "You got no clue what hardcore is."

"Maybe not," Gavin grinned, "so give a test to show us."

Mr. Allen burst out laughing, "You really want this kind of beat down, guys?"

Sara glanced over at Jason the Gavin and shrugged, "Sure, I'm game."

Jason eyed Gavin, while a less than happy grunt came out from his tightly closed mouth, but he didn't really care for the mocking tone he was getting from Mr. Allen. "Sure. Hit us with your best shot."

Before anyone could look at Gavin he grinned, "If we screw up I'll get my whole team to help you get an Outstanding on the next one, but I think it's time we see what Mr. Allen is really made of."

"Oh, oh, ooh, I see how this is going. So, since none of you three have to pass any other tests today, does this means you are all willing to forgo evening testing to make this into a real test?" Mr. Allen's whole body seemed to lose several years and a gleam came to his eyes none of them had seen before.

"I'm in," Gavin stated with no hesitation.

"Me too, then," Sara grinned.

Jason tossed up his hands, "I can't back out now."

Mr. Allen pulled his radio, "Yo, Jasper. These three just put their collective feet in their mouths. You can scratch three for dinner and have command send down a replacement to cover for me. We ain't coming back in time for evening testing. It's time for my dream advanced ISTaZ test!"

There was a long whistle as a way of a reply, followed by laughter, "Start the video and audio feed now. I can't wait to see what you do to those three."

"You got it; you'll have to change vehicle rotation and assignments as well. Allen out."

Sara didn't know whether to giggle or cry as Mr. Allen pointed for them to grab their bags and put them into the camp's only full space transport craft.

The veteran Explorer then glanced over to Gavin, "So I happened to notice Commander Montgomery certified you on flight and even Sub O and O flight and has taken you up a few times to make sure."

Gavin's eyes went wide, "Um, yes sir…"

"Good," Mr. Allen grinned rather fiendishly. "Jump into the pilot seat and pull up the controls. I'll keep it set for instructor mode from the co-pilot side, since we have others with us, but I don't intend on doing squat."

Jason watched from the back seat as Gavin pulled out the pre-flight checklist and did a full comm check with the Explorer Corps space station. He still wasn't convinced the kid was going to take control until a voice gave Gavin clearance and made sure to warn Mr. Allen; Gavin was not certified for moon landings but could leave atmosphere.

"You really can fly!" Jason gasped

Gavin glanced back with a grin, "We are hoping Oliver can pass enough tests to get flight training before we leave so all of us from Team Five can fly. All four of us from the original group have passed ground school and soloed; we also have three hours of flight time each so we have our basic certifications. Only Robin is certified for instrument landings and moon landings as a primary, though. I haven't even gotten certified for solo moon take offs yet. I just can't quite get the controls right in the lighter gravity."

"It's more about not having atmosphere across your control surfaces, than low gravity," Mr. Allen snickered some. "If you manage to pass this test, I'll get you to pass certification right quick like. Now take us up and get us sub orbital and keep us there until you come down here," he pointed to a glowing dot on a map he pulled up on the heads up display, "with no flight interference."

Gavin typed on the keyboard and felt his eyes go wide, "It's a volcanic island off the third continent and it's smoking!"

"Yup," Mr. Allen stated as he leaned the front copilot seat back as far as it could go and put his hands behind his head. "She's all yours Recruit."

Gavin sent the coordinates to the back, "Guys, I got to fly us there so you two need to grab us all the data you can find on everything from vegetation, to animals, to safe places to set down, plus anything else you can think of."

Robin turned and glanced back as he was making his way back to his team's tent. The sound of the magnetic drives of a spacecraft engaging was unmistakable. He stared as he saw the craft lift off above the buildings as the wings unfolded. As he saw Gavin in the pilot seat, he shot his friend a look only to get a shrug. A second later the craft angled up and the wings folded back slightly.

Fairfax came out and watched the craft disappear into the crystal blue sky, "What's going on?"

"No idea, but Gavin had the controls."

Fairfax frowned, "The wings were set for Sub O flight, though."

"Yeah, and he pulled Mr. Allen for his test."

"Ouch," Fairfax cringed. "I really feel sorry for him, cause Sub O normally means a long, fast flight. I bet the test isn't even going to be on this continent!"

"I can't wait to hear all about it," Robin snickered. He looked around for a moment, "So have you seen Oliver?"

"Not since he saw he got an excellent." Fairfax chewed on his lip, "He's kind of hard to read, but he seemed to get hit pretty hard by it. So where have you been the last hour?"

Robin made a small grin, "Getting something ready for our meeting." His mood quickly darkened as he clenched his fists in some ager, "I was so worried about shoving food down my throat and getting things ready for this afternoon, I didn't even notice Oliver's reaction."

Ajax came out of the tent, having overheard the conversation. "He's probably in the chow hall. I heard him say he wanted to find someone else he could trust to take the evening testing session with. If he isn't, I'll find him while you all start your study thing."

"You aren't going to join us?" Surprise was evident in Fairfax's voice.

"Actually, as soon as I am sure Oliver is okay, I'm going to crash for a while. I didn't sleep well last night and the basic survival test kicked my butt. The only way to get an Outstanding is to also make sure those with you don't screw up too badly, and there can't be but six working brains cell between all seven of those in Team Eight. I'm shocked they passed Randy. He's such a stupid jerk!"

"Yeah," Fairfax quickly agreed. "They are the oldest group by average age by almost six months and they are the dumbest by at least twenty IQ points. I kind of feel sorry for Grace though. She is two years younger than the next one in Team Eight and I am sure she gets picked on all the time."

Robin shrugged, "Well, she hasn't passed a test yet, so there is a good chance she won't be part of their final group. I kind of hope for her sake, she doesn't make the cut." A pang of nervousness shot through him as he stepped up to the mess hall, "You ready, Fairfax?"

"As I ever will be." He opened the door and glanced in, somewhat surprised by the number of kids sitting around the tables. He quickly spotted his other teammate sitting with five others. "Oliver is over with Team Seventeen."

"Good." Ajax yawned. "Wake me up if I'm still asleep when dinner rolls around."

Fairfax nodded as he stepped in. Almost a score of heads turned and all talking ceased. He quickly moved out of the way to let Robin go in first.

Robin fired a bit of a nasty glance back at Fairfax, only to hear his friend whisper, "Hey, I'll back you up but I ain't talking in front of a group. I'd prefer to be back on Earth fighting off a wave of rats at street level!"

Robin snickered at the comment then moved into the hall. "First off, thank you all for coming. Sorry I'm a bit late, but I wanted to prepare something I hope will be helpful. More on it later, though. I want to start this out by pointing out what I have noticed about our testing to this point, if you are okay with it."

Ricky, the youngest kid in the whole camp at age ten and three weeks, was first to speak. "I don't know about anyone else but I got two passing grades and I don't know what I could-a done to do better. I'll be happy to get a stupid Good mark!"

Fairfax shot the kid a smile but otherwise remained silent. He just couldn't see how anyone could easily speak in front of a group.

Robin, on the other hand, snickered. "Ricky, I came within seconds of failing my first test. The only reason I didn't is I saw something in the instructor telling me it wouldn't be a good idea to call for inspection. The truth is, they give you time to double check almost everything.

"Some of it you have to get right the first time, like looking for lizard mounds and simply avoiding them. Half the tests my guys have talked about included lizard mounds."

All around the hall he saw faces change. Some looked upward and several others plopped down on the tables they were at, more than one making a distinct thudding sound as they impacted the tables pretty hard.

"Wow," Robin stopped and glanced around, "If nothing else good comes out of the next two hours I can see this has been helpful."

Several heads nodded agreement but quickly turned to look back at Robin. For his part, Fairfax could see the others; even those who looked skeptical, were now paying full attention. This helped him push some of his own fear to the side, "Robin, if I may?"

Robin stepped off to the side and used his whole arm to show Fairfax had the floor.

Fairfax noticeably shuddered, "First off, I ain't like Robin. Standing up and talking to this many people scares the crap out of me." He took a deep breath and let it out, "So I am going to add something Oliver and me talked about and shut up."

Hearing a round of snickers gave him a little more courage. "If it looks too easy it is. Every test I took so far I see someone go for the quick way out. During rifle testing, one of those with me fired burst fire at one of those nasty cats. Sure she killed it, but two of the four shots continued on and had to go somewhere…"

Robin was quick to speak up as he heard his friend's voice start to falter, "Guys, this actually leads nicely into my next topic, and we can start with rifle testing. How many of you checked the weapons you were handed for problems?"

Troy, from Team Fifteen, let out a long breath, "Not until I tried to fire my first shot and the beam came out at an angle. I let the crystal cool and fixed it. I managed to get a Passing grade… Wait…You mean my laser optics was purposefully not fully seated in the barrel?"

"Probably," Robin smirked. "The fact you were smart enough to figure out the problem, then waited for your rifle to cool is the reason you passed. One of the first things I dealt with today was mold on the primary filter of the purification unit they issued me. I didn't check before I left, but I did once I was on site and replaced it with a spare. This will be the last test I take without checking out the equipment they issue me before I put it in my pack."

Meghan, the leader for Team Eleven punched her own leg in frustration. "The First Aid test I took yesterday was made way harder because there was no power supply in the pressure point cup. We had to do it by hand. It never occurred to me… the kit looked brand new!"

"But it had been opened," Tiffany, from team fifteen, added in. "I noticed the seal had been broken when I pulled it out of the transport…" She looked down, "Never really thought about why or what it could mean."

"Just like what happened to me," Robin grumbled seeing yet another pattern. "The first miss of the power supply was excusable; the second one probably got you downgraded. They seem to build in second chances for some things, like group equipment. Still, we can eliminate a lot of problems if we give everything a quick check. My bet is, if one of you had noticed the broken seal on the med kit before you left they would have taken it back and handed you a brand new one, since it would take a lot of time to double check everything in a med kit and we only have four hours per test."

Robin pulled out his hand held camera and projected an image up on a wall. "I wasn't allowed to take video during the testing but nothing say I couldn't re-create something I saw on my first test. This is going to take some time, but I don't think talking about this alone will help anyone. You need to see it and then we can talk about it."

The video showed Robin setting up an E tent. The whole process took almost twenty minutes. Robin then moved back to where he had set the camera up and showed the whole area. For the first time he spoke in the video he shot. "This is likely the kind of situation the instructors will put you in. But you have to really look around before you call for a grade; you can try to double check your own work. At this point I have failed, but I have not called for a grade so I can still make this right." He moved up and reset the camera. This time he cleared a spot and moved a few flat rocks over so the domed environmental tent could be level and anchored it. The whole video lasted almost forty minutes.

For almost a minute there was nothing but silence. Finally Curtis, from Team Eleven, shook his head; "Robin, I need to take the test and I saw nothing wrong with the first time, nothing. If anything; the second time looked worse because it wasn't on level ground. You also set up an E dome, like three times faster than I ever came close to. All the insulation and stuff kills me."

Robin held up his hand to give everyone a bit more time. When no one else spoke up Robin hit his touch pad and replayed the area again. "When I took the test Jasper… Mr. Montgomery… said we have to combine all of our training, look past the book. He then asked me this question; 'What are you supposed to be learning in this class?'"

"How to deal with bad weather," Curtis answered instantly.

"Same answer I gave, might even be the same words," Robin snickered. "All it got me was the 'oh really' look."

"Compete with the hands on the hips?"Troy asked with a wide grin.

"Yeah, and the one raised eyebrow," Robin returned the smile.

This got some humor filled snickers and comments. At the same time Curtis shook his head and dug in his pack, pulling out his own comp pad. A few seconds later he projected his own image of the manual up on the wall next to Robin's paused video, "The title is right there: Bad Weather Survival."

"What about the survival part?" Tiffany spoke up in sudden understanding. "Handling bad weather is one thing. Normally we run inside and sit it out or watch it out of a window. There isn't going to be anywhere to run to, no one to ask for help other than our teammates and what we have been taught."

She ran her hands through her hair. "This isn't one of my classes and I have never even seen one of those dome things. Why would we need to set one of those up?"

"It's for bad weather," Curtis held up open hands showing his building frustration. "Mr. Montgomery says the average team has to set these things up like three to four times on a typical ISTaZ stint. Normally, the first few weeks tend to be most likely since there is a greater chance for snow and real cold. It's designed to keep everyone warm and let ice and snow build up on the outside which, as weird as it sounds, provides extra insulation. Those two tubes coming up out of the top are for air circulation. Body heat takes care of the rest. We need to be prepared to stay in them for days, if needed."

Sean, the only kid from Team Nineteen to pass two tests so far, chewed on his lower lip for a few seconds before he looked over to Curtis, "When I was on land nav classes there were areas with, like, over a meter of snow. I know this isn't one of my classes, dude, but if we need to stay in it for, like, days for a snow storm, then don't we want it up higher on a hill? Otherwise we are going to be digging ourselves out of a hole."

"Or end up with a pool of water around us," Ricky added. "Plus, if it is like the freezing rain we had last night, and it all melted this morning, we' be in mud-ville if it was set up in a low spot."

Curtis typed in a query and glanced up from his nope-puter, "There is nothing in the course about where to set the stupid thing up!"

"Nope," Robin agreed. "Nothing in the manual even suggests anything other than to make it as level as possible. Note, it does not say to set it up on level ground, only to make it as level as possible."

"How are we supposed to pass tests when we don't get all the answers?" Shane, the only ten year old in Team Fifteen, demanded to know.

Troy reached over and patted his teammate on the shoulder. "I think the whole point of what Robin and Fairfax are trying to tell us is, we have to figure out part of this on our own. They don't give us all the answers."

"Ms. Reid told me something after my first test," Fairfax once again joined in. "She said we don't have babysitters once we get dropped off, so she wasn't going to tell me what I should do during testing."

Meghan let out a long audible breath and used her hands and elbows to prop up her head. "Then we best get studying. This is going to be a long afternoon and evening, cause we are going to have to rethink everything."

"It could be worse," Fairfax managed a smile. "We watched Mr. Allen take Gavin, Jason and Sara sub orbital for their test."

Several kids noticeably cringed as they quickly decided they would rather be studying with friends rather than deal with Mr. Allen taking them to a test somewhere else on the planet.

At about the same time the kids at camp were breaking into groups to talk over specific tests, Gavin was angling down to the island. "Okay, I need to have a place to set down."

Jason, for the third time, looked to Mr. Allen. "Sir, are you sure? The whole island messes with electronics."

"Yes, cadet, I'm sure." Mr. Allen finally spoke up, "I am abundantly familiar with what it will do to electronics; once you shut something down, powering it back up will fry the circuits. You also can't depend on anything your scanners show, so you will have to do a totally visual landing. And, before you ask, no, you cannot power up the emergency equipment before we get there."

Sara chewed on her fingernails, "The orbital scan shows active lava running down the north face and into the water. I don't see how we are going to do this then…" She shook her head and focused back on the orbital map. "There is a clearing on the west side. The problem is there is some kind to reptile, a snake looking thing with lots of legs and reports show it favors the west side of the island."

"Give me somewhere else," Gavin demanded before he reached up and pulled up space command on the radio. "This is C1354LM, I need a safe path in on flight plan 223R."

"Most of the avian life has bedded down for the night cadet," A female voice responded, "But there are some critters flying around the west side of the island."

"Thank you, command." Gavin glanced back. "West side is out guys. Without electronic overlays I could hit flying animals and if I get blood on the window, we'd be screwed on making a visual landing."

"Then you'll have to take us down to hovercraft mode over the water and see what is under the trees. There is a sandy area…" Her eyes lit up. "Hey, guys, we are going to see the ocean and a real beach!"

"Too bad it's going to be dark," Jason sounded a bit down. "I've always wanted to see what the ocean and waves really looked like."

Mr. Allen glanced back and with a hint of caring in his voice, which was something the kids were not used to hearing out of him, "If you guys pass, big if… but if you do, I'll take you and secure transport for all three of your teams to one of the best beaches on Zong for a whole day before we ship you out to your respective zones."

"Aw, wow," Sara gasped, "We got to pass this test!"

Gavin banked down and once he got two meters off the water he glanced back, "I can do the switch, but I am nowhere near as good at it as Robin or Ajax, so it's going to be a bit bumpy as I disengage the mag drive and switch over to hover. Hold on tight for a few seconds."

"Aw, crap," Mr. Allen muttered while pulling up his seat and buckling in for the first time since he climbed in the craft. "Have you done this over water?"

"Uh…no," Gavin frowned, "Does it make a difference?"

"Aw, crap." The old man muttered again.

Sara swallowed hard, "Um, maybe you should let Mr. Allen do this."

"Nope," Mr. Allen shook his head, "just don't go all crazy and start screaming or nothing."

Jason and Sara exchanged nervous glances while hitting buttons activating the securing fields.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, guys." Gavin grumbled. Hearing uneasy giggles from behind him he pulled the nose up and disengaged the drive then punched up the hover fans.

"Yup," Mr. Allen snorted with a great deal of humor. "Same mistake every rooky pilot makes; you guys ready to see what it's like to be in a submarine?"

"HUH?" Jason shouted.

At the same time, Gavin was gritting his teeth as he felt the back end fall faster than he expected while warning claxons sounded. At the last second he tried to put full power into the back hover fans but it was already too late. The automatic safeties kicked on cutting off the fans as the backend smacked into the water. A few seconds later the whole craft dropped below the surface of the water.

Mr. Allen started laughing as he saw all color drain form Gavin's face. "Boy, relax. There isn't a pilot out there who doesn't do this exact same thing the first time or ten!"

Sara looked out the window seeing a fish swim by, "This is normal?"

At the same time Gavin wiped away a couple of tears, "I'm not going to lose my license?"

"Normal, yes," Mr. Allen snickered, "Lose certifications, no."

"What did I do wrong?" Gavin managed to ask as he felt his heart racing inside his chest.

"If you were over land you were a bit high, which is why it is such a rough transition between flight and hover. Over water however, you can't pull your nose up. Water has give to it, solid ground does not. By pulling the nose up your aft fans are pushing into something liquid, which in turn pushes outward creating a kind of hole in the water. Sensors see water on both sides and won't let water get into the fans so it cuts them off and puts the same kind of field around them as the securing bubbles did for your test mates. With no lift left, we slam into the water and start to sink. If anyone ever tells you they didn't do this the first few times they tried an overwater transition, they'd be lying.

"Now comes the fun part. You got to take us up and try it again. This time pretend the bottom of the ship is a flat rock and try to skip it over the water while the hover fans engage."

Jason's head titled to the side, "How do you skip a rock over water?"

Mr. Allen turned his head and eyed the boy, "You aren't being serious, are you?"

Sara shook her head, "I don't know what you are talking about either."

"And you?" Mr. Allen turned to Gavin.

"Yeah, but only because I got to go to the Mia-Orlando Museum of Water Craft History. One of the displays showed us how and let us do it. It was way cool."

"Earth is really going to hell, if kids have to go to a museum to learn how to skip a rock. It ain't even a place worth living on no more." Mr. Allen muttered with a great deal of disgust. "Well, boy, show your friends how it's done and at some point during the rest of this testing week, every one of you kids is going to learn how to skip rocks!"

Sara decided to take her mind off the fact Gavin was once again taking them up to try again. "Mr. Allen?"

The old man glanced back.

Sara's brow wrinkled, "The way you were talking it sound like you haven't been back to Earth in a long time."

"Haven't," A smile of pride crossed his features, "none of my team have, for over twenty years. We live here. It was the best thanks they could figure out to give us for finding this rock." He turned back around and pulled on his harness a bit harder to make sure it was nice and tight as Gavin came down for his second attempt.

Gavin took one hand off the controls and made a motion of trying to skip a rock. He nodded to himself as he got the craft perfectly level and killed the magnetic drive. He then let the craft skip over the water once and as soon as it bounced back up he hit the over fans with full power. He had to fight the controls some and the whole craft shook as it bounced over some of the light waves but thirty seconds later he had full control and was able to retract the wings. "Wow! What a rush!"

None of the three had seen Mr. Allen look so happy as he reached over and patted Gavin on the shoulder. "Boy, I am more than impressed! If you weren't already a recruit, I'd be demanding you got the pins for this. To get it on your second try… It's just incredible!"

Gavin's smile was radiant as he brought the craft into a small cove and lowered it to the ground under the trees well above high tide. As soon as he packed away from the controls Mr. Allen reached over and typed in a command lock-out.

Mr. Allen rolled his shoulders and spoke with a hint of a sinister overtone. "Okay, cadets, you cannot access any ship function and you need to find a way to let someone know you are stranded. Testing starts now."

All three kids hopped out and grabbed their gear. Gavin was the first to dig into his pack. He quickly started assembling a collapsible rifle.

Jason watched for a few seconds, "Um, you try to shoot it, it'll fry.

"It's ballistic, not energy. Robin and I both have PhilliYork police certifications so we were able to test out of Laser rifles at Dal-Houston and since we had PhilliYork certs, we were given a chance to test in Ballistic weapons as well. Since there are creatures out here, I figured I should keep a watch while we figure out what to do."

Sara rolled her eyes, "With all the gear we have to carry, you have to be nuts to want to add an extra couple of kilos to carry something to shoot bullets!"

Gavin reached down and picked up a small rock and offered it to Sara, "Would you prefer to keep guard with this?"

Jason burst out laughing as he saw the girl glare at Gavin, "Okay, it's official."

"What?" Gavin asked carefully.

"She likes you," Jason teased.

Sara's cheeks flared, and even in the moon light the others could see a hint of red. Even Mr. Allen laughed some.

Sara growled at everyone as she started to look though the gear. The fact she chose not to deny Jason's observation was not lost on any of them. Needing to change the subject quickly she dropped the whole communication bundle onto the sandy soil and looked back. "Okay, so what other neat, non-electric gadgets do you have? Cause we got no way to send a message."

"We could build a raft and send up a signal," Jason offered.

"A raft…" Sara glanced over to Gavin, "You mean like tie branches together and float out there?" She pointed to the ocean and the waves rolling onto an outer barrier reef. "How do you plan on getting out far enough. We have to be at least five hundred to a thousand meters off shore before the interference of this place will let us try to turn it on." She gazed out to the shimmer of moonlight as the waves hit the reef and shook her head.

"Remember, I did say there were sharks out past the breakwater," Sara added, "whatever a breakwater is."

Mr. Allen pointed out to where the larger waves were dispersing as they hit the outer reef. "It is what you are looking at. A breakwater can be natural or man-made. It shelters beaches or harbors from large waves. Where the big waves are forced up and break apart out there, is this island's natural breakwater."

Gavin watched the waves hit and shook his head, "I can't be sure, but I don't think those are a kilometer out."

"No way," Sara agreed. "Hard to tell in the dark, but my guess is between half a kilometer to maybe three quarters of a kilometer. The energy disruption field varies so there is a chance, if we got out there, cutting along the edge of the area until we find a spot. Still, how do we get it out there?"

"As silly as this might sound," Jason managed a grin, "we stick our legs off the end and we kick."

Gavin couldn't believe he was considering the idea. A glance at Mr. Allen was useless, since the man's expression was totally neutral. "Well, it's an option, I guess. But if we do, we will have to take like electronics with us to turn them on so we can fry a few while we search for the right spot. Otherwise we risk frying the emergency signal gear."

Sara continued to look through her own gear. "There has got to be an easier way, and a safer way, guys. On the last test, we had to worry about lizard mounds and I don't' know about you all, but making some kind of raft and getting it out over half a kilometer sounds more dangerous than a bunch of lizard mounds, even if we can use the flotation gear in the emergency hatch of the craft."

Jason glanced over to Mr. Allen, "Are the flotation devices in play?"

"The emergency kit is part of the test, if you want it to be, cadets." Mr. Allen held up his hand, "Let me make this very clear. The only things you cannot try to do is to use ship systems, or damage the ship in any way, which would prevent our safe return to camp. The idea is, you landed here and found electronics don't work, including the ship, and you all need extraction. I'll also tell you this much, I have been trying to convince camp leaders for over a decade to let me try this to see what happens. They wouldn't even let me try it on anyone but third year Superior ISTaZ Teams. When I approached Commander Montgomery with this, he said no, but then came back to me a few days ago and said if someone asked for a real challenge, then I could try it.

"The Commander seems to have this weird knack for sensing something might happen and he is normally right. But, whatever… The important thing is you all asked and I am enjoying this more than you could ever guess."

Sara stared at the old man for a few seconds before finally speaking, "What would have happened if we hadn't done the research and Gavin had shut down the ship?"

Gavin shook his head, "I couldn't; he had it set for instructor mode, so I couldn't power it down." He looked up at the sky, "The only reason you did it was because you weren't sure we would even try to check out where we were going!"

Mr. Allen's eyes flashed with merriment as he let out a long cackling laugh. He leaned back on the craft and smiled, "You're all smart and talented, but let's see how far you can push those brains of yours. I will tell you this much, since you already eliminated the idea, part of the test would have been me warning you to not go out past the breakwater, no matter what. Once out there some of the Earth creatures the scientists decided to populate this world with have the potential to be deadly."

"Then why did they put them here?" Gavin asked, thoroughly appalled to hear some deadly forms of life had been purposefully placed on Zong.

"It was the only way to prevent them from going extinct in nature. The oceans of Earth are closing in on being lifeless because of over fishing and human pollution. In Zong, we found a true second earth, since ninety nine percent of the natural creatures of this world are not capable of fending off Earth species and the vast majority of Zong creatures are not food sources for things brought here from Earth.

"The other thing is scientists were very careful to hatch or artificial womb everything released here, so they didn't bring in viruses and other things from Earth to here. This actually lead to some massive over populations at first, but nature took over as only nature seems to be able to do and some of the bacteria and illnesses associated only with Zong animals started to appear in Earth animals. A few years ago the buffalo were hard hit, which is why we ask you not to hunt them unless you have to. They were down to under two thousand head before they started to rebound. Now the number is once again over five thousand and continuing to climb, but ten years ago, there were estimated to be over a hundred thousand.

"I have lived here through pretty much all of it. Some scientists now think most of the Earth life forms released here are now slightly genetically different than those on Earth. Me, I hope this is true, because Zong, which got its name because it was the twenty-sixth planet of those considered best candidates to support life, with our gravity, also known as Optimal-positioning Near-Earth Gravity. Z, being the twenty-sixth letter, was put at the beginning and thus the world was named Z.O.N.G. by those of us who landed here."

"Wow!" Jason looked over to the other two kids, "I've never seen the reason this world is called Zong. Matter of fact, I have heard many kids wonder why it has such a weird name."

"Me, too!" Sara nodded, "Our holo-teacher even gave us an assignment last year to name or rename Zong and explain why it should be called what we suggested. Most kids failed and I got a D, which got my butt smacked by my dad, but nowhere in the class were we told how or why this place was first called Zong."

Mr. Allen eyed Sara with a great deal of curiosity, "And what name did you come up with, young lady."

"Second Chance."

"Way better than I would have come up with!" Gavin complimented her, "I would have gone with something like Paradise."

"Well, you are both smarter than I am," Jason managed to smile. "I'd have titled mine Earth Too, as in also, not the number."

"To be honest," Mr. Allen nodded, "I think all three of you have great ideas! Now let's see you focus in on this test."

"I have been," Sara mumbled, "But, I can't even start a fire. Our laser lighters are out and the sun is down, so I can't even use my back-up magnifying glass."

Gavin's eyes went a bit wide, "Cool idea! I am going to have to add one to my gear when we get back!"

"Me as well," Jason gave Sara a thumbs up, "But, you're right, it won't help at night."

Gavin help up a finger and dashed back to the craft and came back with a trio of flares. "Let's gather some wood and uses these!"

"Right on!" Sara jumped up, "At least this way, even if we decide to build Jason's raft, we can have some decent light to do it with, but you should keep guard as we move into the trees to grab the wood, since you are the only one of us who can shoot at any threats."

An hour later the kids had a decent sized fire going and were starting to assemble a raft out of some of the longer branches and the extra flotation used in the ship. The problem was, it was slow going as none of them really knew how to use the rope to tie everything together.

Jason winced as he dug another splinter out of his hand. "Damn! I wish we could build a fire big enough to be seen by one of the space stations or something!"

Gavin felt a cold shiver run down his spine as his remembered his trip to the museum in Mia-Orlando. "Right on, Jason!"

"Huh?" Sara stated, "You want to start a fire over half the island or something?"

"NO!" Gavin shouted as he pulled out his note-puter which he had turned on well before they got to the island. "Get all the reflective space blankets and we'll build a reflective cone and aim it at the space station. One of us needs to locate one with the Optical setting on the vision enhancers! We should be able to use my note-puter to get a general location of a space station!"

"I can find one of the space stations since we have a way to get a general idea of where to look." Sara stated with certainly as she dug out her binoculars and set them for visual mode so she didn't have to turn on the digital enhancements, "They are way brighter in the sky so I just have to focus in the brightest stars and look for them to change appearance slightly as they adjust their solar panels, but how are you going to signal them?"

Gavin's eyes seemed to dance with joy in the firelight. He handed over the note-puter, "When I was at the Navel History Museum, Robin and I learned a way to send code by light flashes, so we both memorized it. Old warships used this light code so they didn't have to broadcast a radio and give away where they were at. They used this thing called Morse code, and one of the signals was a distress called an S.O.S. for Save Our Ship! It is a sequence of dashes and dots. Now, if the computers on the space station start seeing this, the artificial intelligence will kick in and alert someone. All we can do is hope someone figures it out!"

Jason started to assemble a cone so they could direct the light upward in a big beam with growing excitement. "Even if they don't, they will send someone down to investigate!" He chewed on his lip, "so how do we send the signal?"

"Once we aim the light so it reflects up toward the space station, we use my reflective blanket with sticks." Sara responded, "We tie it to sticks and pull it back to send light and push it back over the fire to block the light. It may take a few minutes to get it right, but once we get it down we just keep repeating until someone responds."

"Let's do this!" Gavin eagerly jumped up and down in excitement as Sara put the last piece of his plan in place for them.

Mr. Allen felt his jaw drop some as he backed off and watched. He shook his head as the three kids spent another hour and a half making the reflector and second fire. Once they put out the first fire and started playing with actually sending up the message he started chewing on the side of his mouth and started talking to himself. "I'll be damned. Even if this doesn't work it is brilliant. A kid knows of Morse code, who would have ever thunk it!"

Once they started sending a signal, it didn't take long for a small craft to appear in the sky. A small rescue team landed on the island, fully expecting to find someone in trouble. All four members of the rescue team took time to shake hands with the three kids and promised to visit the training camp before they all went to their assigned zones.

As they watched the rescue craft angle up toward the distant dot in the night sky, Mr. Allen took a minute to give each kid a quick hug and motioned for them to follow him into the woods.

Gavin glanced over to the other two, but not knowing what else to do the three quickly followed. Ten minutes later they came up on an old wrecked lander with over a dozen huts built around it, all but two had all but been reclaimed by the island's plant life. "Welcome to the first human camp ever constructed on Zong."

Jason's eyes lit up as he looked around, "This is where you landed?"

"Yeah, and where me and my unit lived until Earth answered my distress beacon. You are only the second set of cadets to get to see it."

"Is it safe to explore it?" Sara asked with giddiness in her voice.

"Sure, but if any of the snake-pedes are around they will rear back and hiss. If they do, move slowly and back out so Gavin can shoot them. They will not kill you but they will make you very sick if they manage to bite you. Don't worry too much, though, they don't tend to come to this side of the island, but they do like dark spaces so there is chance there is one or two in the old shacks. Mine and Lieutenant Gillespie's are totally ferro-creted and sealed, but I'd prefer you stay out of mine and my old Lieutenant's is locked."

The kids used chem-light sticks for light and spent over an hour exploring the old camp and spacecraft before Mr. Allen called for them to get back to the ship. With Gavin once again behind the controls, Mr. Allen glanced over to the three kids. "Space command is going to have a collective heart attack."

"Why?" Sara asked.

"Because, for the first time ever, I am going to recommend multiple Outstanding marks on a test and submit them for special awards of some sort. You all just rewrote the book for getting an Outstanding grade out here. The old one was the raft trick, that and using other electrics to find where you could send a signal from, so you had it figured out. This, however, was beyond brilliant and all three of you helped put the pieces together. Nice job cadets!"

Robin glanced back over to Ajax and Fairfax as they came back from the evening study group. Both kids looked a bit unhappy, "What's wrong guys?"

Ajax shook his head, "Oliver has spent pretty much all evening with Meghan, Sean, Ricky and Shane getting ready for their Spelunking test. They are pouring their hearts into this test."

"Is he going to let me try to do my thing and help him like we talked about at dinner?"

Fairfax shrugged. "I haven't been able to ask him, although I know he wants to do the link up again."

"So do I," Ajax admitted. "It made me feel kind of weird and I wasn't sure what to make of it, but now I kind of miss not having the middle of my head tingle."

"To be honest, me too." Fairfax grinned sheepishly. "But I don't want you to hurt yourself, Robin."

"I don't think it did. It made me hungry, but it helped me gain some control. I have to wonder what would have happened without opening up this creepy ability further with you all last night; 'cause I'm pretty sure I would have missed the filter in the test today. Matter of fact, I think I used this ability during my first test too. I knew I hadn't done something right even though my brain was telling me to call for a grade. I think the same thing happens when I fill out the applications to places for my Junior Explorer patrol. It's why my group keeps getting to go to so many places and do so much."

"It makes sense," Ajax snickered. "I bet the government of your CHZ would be pissed if they found out you have been taking advantage of them!"

Robin grinned, "Wait till I get a chance to really dial this in! With your guy's help, I bet the academy will be really an interesting place to develop this more!"

Just as Robin finished talking, Gavin came in with a huge smile on his face. "Well, if you want help count me in, but not for helping me. It felt like I cheated on the first Outstanding, but not this one!"

"Wow…" Fairfax suddenly found himself at a loss for words as he saw Gavin wearing an Explorer Corp uniform with private rank on his collar.

"Right on Gavin!" Ajax jumped up off his cot and gave his friend a huge hug.

Robin's whole face lit up. "Congrats! Way to go! How about the other two?"

"All three of us got awarded with recruit rank, but since I managed to convert into hover mode over water on my second try then proved I could do it again before Mr. Allen let me fly back he pushed for me to get a special award. Space command agreed, so I was given private rank."

"Really cool," Oliver managed a weak grin as he entered the tent and patted Gavin on the shoulder. "I just heard from Sara and Jason how you guys actually got to see where Mr. Allen's ground team crashed and where they lived too."

"It was so awesome… but I'm beat. At least Sara and Jason got a nap on the way back. I had to fly and dock with the space station, then fly back here." He handed a bag over to Robin, "Uniforms for you, along with rank and your pilot wings. Mr. Allen wants me to take the day off from testing tomorrow; so he can get me up to your certifications, so I can have full space wings too."

Oliver let out a long sigh, "I have got to get an Outstanding on this cave exploration test tomorrow!"

"You want me to help?" Robin asked.

"I do, but I am kind of like Gavin, it would kind of feel like cheating," Oliver let out a long breath.

Fairfax moved over to Oliver, "Look, let Robin help you on this then all the pressure is off. You can get another Outstanding. This way we all know we're in and we can really focus on helping the others."

Gavin nodded slowly, "Look, even as right as Robin was about my test there were some things he couldn't see. I think he can only really see the past and what is planned or something. No one planned on Adrienne getting hurt and even when he was linking us together her fall was fuzzy, and he wasn't even sure how she was going to fall for sure, only how they wanted her to fall. It's almost like the fuzzy parts were a warning to really pay attention or something.

"Besides, if Robin wants to learn how to activate this thing and use it better, then this is a way for you to help him. Plus, I don't want you left out of going to the academy with us!"

Oliver nodded slowly, "OK, sure. Let's do this. After talking things over, I don't see how I won't get an Outstanding on Laser Rifle anyway."

Gavin glanced over to Robin, "You know, on the flight back, I had a weird idea about this thing of yours too."

Robin glanced over with a degree of eagerness, "Let's hear it!"

"Do you think it would be easier on you if we held hands?" Gavin's face went a bit red as he realized how it sounded but he continued to talk, "I mean, maybe it would help you to use less energy to see it if you were in contact with Oliver. It might also be less of a drain on you to project it to us if we were all in contact with each other."

Robin shrugged, "It's worth a shot, but just in case others want to come poking around we ought to kill the lights and make it look like we are bedded down for the night."

"Good idea," Ajax hardened, "The last thing we need is for Randy to see us holding hands."

"Speaking of Team Eight, none of them showed up for either study session," Fairfax announced more for Gavin's benefit than anything else.

"Probably made things a bit easier," Gavin let out a snort. "Anyone give you any problems?"

"No, and there was almost no test takers this evening. I think there was almost thirty of us in the study session. Only those who had not passed two tests and those from Team Eight went for testing this evening," Oliver informed Gavin. "And everyone pretty much has our whole team's back too.

"Troy and Curtis even escorted me back here because Randy is already back from his test and it is pretty clear he failed, and failed badly. I thought he was going to try to fight all three of us until Mr. Allen told him to stop calling others names and hit the books before he ends up being shuttled out for standard AdventureQuest intake."

Oliver managed a grin, "Mr. Allen told him if he didn't knock it off he would end spending his entire three months on some island learning how to survive with no electrics at all."

Gavin snickered, "Hey, I just came from there. Anything electronic has to be on before you get there and stay on or it blows out when it gets turned back on."

Oliver's head tilted to the side and his face showed how perplexed he was, "How did you send a signal without electrics?"

Gavin pulled out his pocket LED and flashed it several times.

Robin giggled, "He just spelled out the words, 'In a way predating Mr. Allen'."

"Oh, you have to teach us!" Ajax all but begged.

Fairfax felt a chill of excitement, "If we all could learn it, we could talk to each other without saying a word!"

Gavin nodded, "We'll have months to teach you. Let's get Oliver taken care of and make sure we can all go to the academy first."

"Kill the lights and let's do this," Robin commanded. "Ajax, you did get me some food, right?"

"It'll be cold, but yeah, I hit the serving line while the staff was breaking it down and stuffed my satchel with more than enough for you. I think a couple of the Explorer cadets on clean-up noticed the food was missin' but they kind'a shrugged it off. Unless I miss my guess, I think they were somewhat happy to have less work to do."

Fairfax let out a sigh, "I wonder if we will be on food duty at some point as academy cadets."

"If it means we get to come here for extra time," Gavin smiled, "I'll be the first in line volunteering!"

"I'll be right there with you," Robin agreed without hesitation. "Even as cool as the dome is in Dal-Houston, this place is way better."

Robin nodded at Oliver, "Since I am trying to read your test, you should be in direct contact with me."

Oliver reached out and took Robin's hand. He had to fight off the desire for even closer contact as he sat down on the cot next to him.

Robin glanced over, "Look, relax already. I know you are trying to hide being gay, but we all know and I don't mind if you want to put an arm around me."

Oliver swallowed hard and edged closer. As he put his arm around Robin he squirmed slightly to adjust himself. He cringed; half expecting Robin to push him away and say something, like what had happened every other time Oliver had tried to get close to someone. Part of him mentally braced for harsh words from the others while his body tightened on the off chance of fist being thrown.

Robin felt both the physical and mental unease. Robin said nothing; instead he reached over, put his arm around Oliver's shoulder and pulled him even closer. Even as he felt Oliver tighten up more, he started to rub the back of his neck gently.

Robin said nothing as he continued to give Oliver a neck massage. To further ease Oliver's mind, he wasted no time using his free hand to take Gavin's right hand.

Ajax moved around to take Oliver's free hand while Fairfax killed the last of the light and closed the circle by taking Ajax's and Gavin's hand.

Robin spoke after a few seconds, "Alright, this test is Oliver's so I don't think he should be the one to talk me into it like he helped to do the last time. Gavin, help take me into this one."

Gavin took a deep breath, "OK… Oliver you are moving to the vehicle assignment. Think about it. Robin, what vehicle and who else is there?"

Robin tried to focus and got nothing for a moment, then he found himself reading some thoughts off of Oliver. "Man, come on Oliver. This is no different than the last time I let you hug me. No one here is going to hurt you…" Robin couldn't help but giggle as he caught a rogue thought. "No, I don't care if you think I am gorgeous, and no, I don't even care if you thought it from the first time you saw me."

Ajax giggled, "Come of Oliver, focus on the test. I can hear your thoughts now too! I'm fine with you thinking about me being kind of cute too. You're not too bad looking yourself, you know. Now focus on walking up to the vehicle. Think about it, and think about the gear you are going to use."

Robin had to fight through some other thoughts coming from the others. The physical contact was making getting surface thoughts from all of them almost too easy. Gavin was actively trying to figure out why any boy could find another boy beautiful when there were so many good looking girls in the camp, and in particular, Sara.

Fairfax was trying to read the thoughts of others and was so focused on getting bits and pieces he couldn't really concentrate on anything else and Ajax, although wanting to be helpful, was actually slightly disappointed Oliver found him only somewhat attractive.

Suddenly he felt something, however, and directed his mind onto it. It took another few seconds of fighting though some more stray thoughts from the others, but he saw a glimmer in the middle of his mind of Oliver walking toward a vehicle with seven other kids around it. He focused on the image and it suddenly exploded into such clarity it was almost like he was there.

Gavin gasped as the images leaked into his mind. "Wow! They are taking the supply transport since there are eight of them. I can see Meghan, Sean, Ricky, Shane, Lynn, Jason, and Dillon too!"

Ajax snickered, "Dress warm, Oliver, you guys are going to have to ride in the back and transport's cargo area isn't heated."

Fairfax took a deep breath, "This one is even in color Robin! Um, it looks like you are drawing Mrs. Rockland for the test, Oliver… Dillon has a black eye…"

Robin turned his focus to the boy from Team Eight and for a brief instant he saw Randy's fist slamming into the smaller boy's face. Even though he didn't hear the words, he somehow knew Randy was mad at the kid because he had passed the afternoon test and wanted to go to the study group. He pulled back from the image, but not before Fairfax caught Robin's thought.

"Kicking Randy's ass for punching Dillon isn't going to help anything right now, but I'd love to see you do it again."

"Me too," Ajax admitted. "But maybe we can get some real revenge if Oliver can help Dillon get an Outstanding."

"Yeah," Gavin smiled, "Maybe we could help all the others and make Randy look so bad he will be forced to step down as team leader."

"Come on," Fairfax prodded, "Let's keep on this test. We saw how bad this drained Robin the last time. Robin, forget Dillon for now and think about something else. What is Mrs. Rockland planning?"

As Robin refocused his efforts on the test he didn't have to say anything. Everyone in the tent saw it. First, time seemed to stop and back up a bit, with Mrs. Rockland walking backwards from the supply hut. It was almost like watching a movie in reverse. She backed into the tent, pulled out the gear, and sabotaged some of the equipment, but did so in a way to where it could be easily found and fixed. She didn't stop with just one or two items either. Almost every pack she planned on handing out had multiple small problems.

The image suddenly fast forwarded at an astounding speed. The transport landed on a long ridge line pockmarked with several small caves. There were Lizard mounds to the south where a couple of the biggest and most enticing caves were located.

Up to the north there was a large overhang of snow which if it fell could cause a small avalanche. This realization inside of Oliver actually caused the image to flicker a few times, as looking at what was above the cave was not something covered; nor was it something they had talked about in the study group Oliver had spent hours being part of.

This time Gavin spoke, "Neat little trap they set. Keep everyone away from it, Oliver, and you'll be fine. Let it go and think about the test."

Oliver let out a long breath, "I'm just mad at myself, because I haven't been looking around enough on any of my tests. Sorry."

'Nothing to apologize for.' Robin pushed his thoughts inside all their heads without ever opening his mouth. 'I would have never thought of looking all the way up to the top of the hill to see what was above it.'

The image flickered a couple more times as a couple of possible scenarios played out. The first was Jason and Shane shooting at the overhang in an attempt to bring the snow down. It was not clear if this worked, but it was a way to get a better grade. The second one was of Dillon sliding on some rocks, but it faded out quickly. As much as Robin tried to get a clearer picture, the only thing he could see was the same thing.

"I don't like the feel of this part, Robin," Ajax spoke up nervously, "Can we move on?"

'I don't know what it means, though.' Robin spoke through the mental link again. 'Give me a second.' He demanded as he tried again only to get the same result. 'Oliver, before you get into a cave, keep an eye on him.'

"I will."

Robin took his mind off the image. 'OK, Oliver, think about going into a cave or something.'

All five boys watched as a new set of images played out. These weren't quite as clear as the first part was, but were still in color. The first few caves only went in a short distance. The fifth one was really promising, but there was a weird smell and some large animal droppings.

Fairfax cringed but when he started to speak he realized he had already transmitted his thoughts to the others, 'Um, just a guess, but going deeper in there is like auto fail!'

'Such would be my guess.' Oliver managed a soft snicker as his thoughts carried across the whole group as well

Robin's return thought was almost a whisper in the middle of the others' minds, 'Wow, this is a really strong connection this time. I bet all of you can just start thinking to each other now!' Robin dialed in on the test again and sent a telepathic message to the others. 'I get a strong sense Mrs. Rockland wants to see some leadership here. You can't let anyone try to check out any nearby caves. Move out of that area!'

'No problem. I do not want to play with any meat eating beast.' Oliver shivered. 'I would prefer to stay at the top of the food chain.'

This got a round of audible snickers from all of the others and caused the image to fade from their minds for a few seconds. When it started up again, the group was peeking into a small entrance in the side of a hill which quickly opened up into a much larger cavern beyond. In the distance there was the sound of water as it roared down a narrow passage somewhere deeper within. Closer examination by Robin showed multiple footprints on the cave floor, telling all of them this cave was used for testing often.

'You don't even have to tell me not to go too close to the water if we can hear it running. Mrs. Reid actually told us during one of the classes last week about a couple of kids who fell into a cave river a few years ago and were never found.'

'Still, I am getting a feeling of Mrs. Rockland seeing if any of you suggest to tie off to each other in case. She will tell you it's not needed, but just by saying it gets you a plus mark.' Robin added.

'Interesting,' Oliver grumbled, 'Yet another thing the manual does not mention.'

'I get the feeling they are pushing us extra hard because of our classes,' Robin snickered. 'They don't want to give out too many Outstanding marks, but they also want to be fair, so they are coming up with ways for some to stand out a bit more above the others.'

The kids continued to watch and occasionally even listen to the rest of the test. There were another half dozen things to show extra caution around, but it was all straight forward. It all amounted to paying attention above and to make sure each foot was firmly planted on solid ground. Finally, even though there was a whole lot more to explore, once the twine ran out the exploration had to end. Getting lost in a cave was just too easy to do.

Just as Robin was about to break concentration, Fairfax's mind focused on Dillon again and everyone in the team could feel his concern. 'Robin, once we saw Dillon slide, I never saw him again.'

'Huh, me neither.' Gavin thought with a hint of anxiety mind. 'All the others would show up now and again, especially, Ricky. Oliver, do you really find some boys that cute?'

'Yeah, he does. I don't know how you can be so focused in on Sara when she isn't even part of this test, so let it go. We can talk about this stuff later.' Ajax defended Oliver quickly, 'Let's see if we can help Robin get more of Dillon. I can already feel him thinking about needing food!'

'Yeah, getting real hungry over here,' Robin gave the others a mental chuckle. 'Let me try to see where Dillon is in all this and then we can break so I can eat.'

Once again the image of Dillon sliding on the rocks played though all their minds as Robin tried to think only about the boy. Suddenly the scene shifted to a couple of the girls from Team Eight stripping Dillon to his undershorts, holding him so Randy could punch him and slap him without any retaliation while the others laughed.

The image shifted to Dillon crawling into bed with tears pouring out of his eyes and holding up a knife to his wrists but not going through with it.

The metal picture changed again to Dillon on the ridgeline with all the caves and sliding, but this time they saw the thirteen year old looking around on the edge of a hill and then purposefully jumping so he'd slide down toward a steep drop off of well over fifteen meters.

'He wants to kill himself!' Fairfax thought so loudly it actually caused a bit of pain in the heads of the other four.

'I don't think so.' Robin countered quickly, 'I can get some things the rest of you don't seem to be able to. He wants to get hurt so he has to go for treatment then just go to standard AdventureQuest intake, but then what happens after he jumps is totally fuzzy. It's kind of like what I saw in Gavin's test. I know what is being planned but then what really happens is jumbled. This one totally fades out, so I don't know what it means.'

Fairfax felt some exhaustion inside of Robin and started to speak up only to find his thoughts had already carried to the rest of the group. 'Break it off guys, Robin needs a break!'

Fairfax was the first to break the circle, but was followed moments later by everyone else. Still, they could see as Robin tried one more time to see what was going to happen after Dillon fell. He ended up with the same result.

Gavin shook Robin's shoulder. 'Let it go!' a moment later his words came out. "Let it go!"

Before more could be said, Ajax moved up with some of the food he had grabbed and moved over to Robin. At the same time Oliver was lowering the boy back into the cot. "I won't let him hurt himself, Robin. Let me handle it from here."

Gavin shook his head and cringed slightly, "Are any of the rest of you feeling a bit dizzy?"

Fairfax blinked a few times, "I don't know if dizzy is the right word. I am seeing some spots around the corners of my eyes and the middle of my head is really tingly this time!"

"Exact same here," Ajax spoke. "Way more than the first time, but it feels so neat!"

"I'm a bit dizzy," Oliver admitted sheepishly. "I'm also a bit hungry now and I wasn't at all before we started."

"I could eat some, too." Fairfax grinned, "But me being hungry is nothing new."

Gavin stumbled once but made it to his own cot before lying down. "I'm hungry and I just ate at the space station less than an hour ago. I wonder if we all didn't start using some extra energy because our minds were linked though Robin. We better take a day or two off to see if there are any other lingering problems."

Robin took a deep breath and all but inhaled a packet of juice before looking over all the food Ajax had pilfered, "Wow, what did you do, take all the juice packets, lasagna, and cake left?"

"Yeah, why?"

While Oliver and Gavin stared at the mound of food, Fairfax patted Ajax on the shoulder, "You three just don't get what it's like down at street level in Chi-Troit. We see this kind of food and we'll find a way to take it and take it fast, given even half the chance! We can also be real sneaky. It doesn't take much for us to revert back to being SLO's!"

"Good," Robin announced, "Cause I can feel all of you are hungry so let's eat the evidence and get some sleep."

Morning came a bit too early for all the kids in Team Five. Still, Oliver was the first to get up, wanting to be as awake as possible for the test. He started going over what he had seen with the help of Robin while he organized his pack.

Gavin rolled over. "Come on Oliver. Stop talking."

Oliver frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Ajax sat up and rubbed some crusty junk from around his eyes, "You were just talking to yourself about hoping to be able to stop Dillon from jumping."

"No, I didn't."

'Yes, you did.' Fairfax groaned as he pulled his pillow around his head. 'Would you shut up and give me a few more minutes!'

"OK, Mr. Grumpy." Ajax snickered as he grabbed some stuff to hit the camp showers. "You need a shower as bad as I do."

Fairfax wrapped the pillow around his head tighter. 'It doesn't matter, we are both planning on taking rescue swimming this morning so we'll get clean enough in the water.'

"What the…" Oliver spoke as he looked over to Fairfax and realized he had heard the comment but the boy's lips hadn't so much as budged. "I heard you Fairfax!"

Robin sat up and blinked, "So did I, but I didn't hear it like sound, I heard it in my mind!"

Gavin let out a gasp, "Me too!"

Fairfax suddenly sat up as he too realized about half of what he was hearing was not being spoken. He clamped his fingers over his lips so he could show the others he wasn't talking and thought, 'Are we really reading each other's minds without Robin's help?'

'Yes, we are!' Ajax jumped up and down in some delight. 'I can feel something new in the middle of my brain, it's kind of like tingling, but it is different now. This is too cool!"

Robin held up his hand and spoke aloud. "Guys, this isn't the time to play with this. Let's see if it's still happening after morning testing and, if it is, we need to see how far away we can get and still have it work and stuff. But if using this hits you all, like it does me, you will get too hungry to pass the tests if you continue to play with it now."

Gavin scratched his head, realizing the weird itch he was feeling was actually inside his head and couldn't be scratched. "Robin, I know you are right, but can you do us a favor, and hit the showers so we can see if it really is us and not some sort of link with you?"

Robin nodded and grabbed his stuff, "Good idea."

The four boys continued to pick up stray thoughts from each other and even held a short metal conversation before Robin returned.

Robin came back in, "I started hearing you thinking to each other about Dillon right about the time I got to the door of the mess hall."

Oliver's eyes went wide, "But you couldn't hear us in the showers?"

"No, I picked up a few things when I got to the back of the mess hall, but I could hear you all clearly once I got to the front of it. That gives me a range of about two hundred meters. I hate to break up the party, but Dillon was in the shower when I was there and was crying softly. I managed to take a quick look; he took the full beating we saw last night."

"Crap," Ajax shook his head, "he's kind of a dick, but no one deserves to get beat down… well no one but Randy…" Even though his words tapered off his thoughts didn't. 'Maybe we should tell Jasper.'

'We'd need proof,' Gavin thought back. 'Otherwise the others would all deny it and we'd be left hanging out to dry along with Dillon, and no matter what's happening to him, I don't want him on this team.'

'Me neither,' Oliver thought. 'Even if he has a nice looking face and pretty eyes.'

This got a round of out loud giggles from the others and gave Robin a chance to cut off the thought talk. "Guys, talk. Don't burn yourself out."

"What if we have to practice to keep it going or something?" Ajax asked with a great deal of worry. "I don't want to lose this!"

"Well, you all seemed to have leached this off of me, so if I need to hold a few more sessions to make it stronger I will. The circle thing worked real well, so, if I need to, I'll bump you all again. Hopefully it is permanent though. Maybe I can even push over the other ability to see what is planned or what has happened too. We will just have to wait."

"I think Robin is right," Fairfax frowned, "I actually think I'm now hungrier now than I was before we started this morning. We have to be careful. The real problem is I don't see a way to totally shut it off now. I'm still hearing Gavin wondering why Oliver can think of a guy's eyes when Sara is walking around here somewhere."

Gavin turned bright red, "Hey, now!"

Laughter exploded out of the rest of the group, but at the same time they felt the link to Gavin shut off.

"Hey, how'd you cut us off," Ajax begged to know.

"I thought of a door slamming between you all and my thoughts."

One after another the other three boys did the same thing and found their link to each other was cut.

Oliver held up a finger causing the rest to stop what they were doing. Oliver then closed his eyes and imagined the door opening again. He then sent a thought to Ajax. 'Can you hear me thinking you are more cute then I let on last night?'

Ajax heard this and tried to think a response only to realize he couldn't.

Oliver thought to him again. 'Re-open the door.'

Ajax grinned and nodded in sudden understanding. I few seconds later he thought back. 'Got it! Thanks for the compliment too.'

Oliver shot Ajax a smile. "We have to imagine the door opening again before we can send thoughts. As long as your door stays shut I can think to you, but I can't hear an answer."

"Good experiment," Robin patted Oliver on the back. "Now, let's keep the doors shut, eat and test. If we all pass we'll see what we can and can't do this afternoon."

Gavin signed. "I have to go flying with an instructor Mr. Allen is getting for me this afternoon."

Robin suddenly smiled as he had a new flash of inspiration. "Ask him to take Oliver with you so he can learn the basics. We still have enough time to get him through basic ground school with Jasper before we leave, but he needs some flight time."

Oliver's face lit up, "I could get wings too?"

"Sure!" Ajax nodded. "You're part of Team Five and we all need to have our wings before we go to the academy! We'll all pitch in and help you."

Gavin moved up to Robin as the other three headed off to the chow hall. "Hey, I don't want to tell the others, but when I got my rank from Commander Hollister last night, she pulled Mr. Allen off to the side."

"Were you able to hear any of it?"

"Not really, but it had something to do with us, and Mr. Allen didn't look like he was happy about it. I did hear enough to know if you get one more Outstanding grade and Oliver gets one as well, the Commander is going to come down and talk to us privately. I backed away before I could hear more since I heard someone coming down the passage.

"Then on the way back down Mr. Allen said there was a chance of a command team coming down to talk to all of us if your testing classes work out."

Robin took a deep breath, "Any idea, any at all?"

"I heard some of the space station people talking about a lot of sun spots and hoping it doesn't cause the same types of problems as it did for kids from the San-San CHZ six months ago. As soon as they realized Sara and I were listening, they shut up though."

"Well, I have sun and star navigation to take, which has to be at night and re-supply bunker testing this morning, and those are the two easiest tests. Heck even Allen from Team Nineteen got an Outstanding on it last night. The Re-Supply test was twenty minutes out and he was back in less than an hour. He said it was all about checking for safety and making sure the place was properly locked along with sending a report of what was taken and to look out for what wasn't there but should be so it could be added to the report as well. He also said the only reason he got the Outstanding was because of the classes."

Gavin snickered, "I bet they are going to throw you a real curve ball on your test this morning."

"I'm counting on it," Robin responded with a smirk. "They don't want me to get another Outstanding."

Gavin rolled his eyes and put his arm around the shoulders of his best friend as they walked toward the mess hall. "Actually, they are kind of expecting you to at this point, which has Mr. Allen more than a bit peeved."

"Oh, boy, this is going to be a beast of a test then," Robin laughed. "I was going to try to do it without using this mental thing, but maybe I should use it and get it over with."

"The more I think about it, the more I think you are always using it. Most of the time you don't even realize it."

Robin glanced over to Gavin, "I was kind of wondering if all the places I have gotten our patrol approved to go see is because I have unknowingly known what to put on the paperwork."

"Probably has…" Gavin started only to get cut off as Randy came around the mess building from the other direction.

"Well, look there! They really are boyfriends!"

Gavin glanced over at Robin, "My turn."

Robin snorted, "Be my guest. I'll watch your back, since we know he doesn't fight fair."

Gavin took his arm from around Robin and stepped forward. "I'm not one of your team members and you aren't going to get anyone to hold me down like you did last night. Also the same warning I gave you at the Dal-Houston Dome applies; you are risking serious injury." A nasty smirk crossed Gavin's face. "You come at me, you're going to need one of your boyfriends to tuck you in tonight; but if you still want to play, let's do this."

Randy snarled and a couple of others from his team got wide eyes. It was clear at least a couple of them felt a little guilty for what had happened in the middle of the night.

Gavin took another couple of steps forward, "Come on, or do you always need girls to hold down those you beat up!"

Randy's whole face went bright red, "If I wasn't gunna get kicked out of this I'd kill you right now."

Gavin glanced over to Mr. O'Mally, who had come out of his own office to see what all the fuss was about, "Sir, can we just get this over with, without anyone getting kicked out?"

Mr. O'Mally frowned deeply, "Technically, this is no different than what happened between Robin and Randy earlier. No one is getting kicked out for fighting, but if this continues we will put down some new rules. Besides, I'm not liking what I am hearing. Those are some pretty serious accusations you are making, Private. Do you have proof?"

"Not hard proof," Gavin stated, "but you could always take a look at those in Team Eight and come to your own conclusions."

Mrs. Reid stepped out of her office with a sonic rifle, "Let's get this over with. We all knew another fight between Randy and Team Five was going to happen. Once I call for a halt, you both best stop though, 'cause I will shoot if you don't… and I will not miss."

Everyone moving toward the mess hall, and several inside, stopped what they were doing and moved to see what was going on.

Jasper moved up, only to get stopped by Mrs. Rockland, "Gavin's making some serious claims against Randy, boss, and Eva just gave the go ahead. Let's see what happens and pick up the pieces. This really needs to end. I am tired of waiting for the next round."

As a circle of kids continued to grow around Gavin and Randy, Gavin took off his Explorer Corps coat and tossed it over to Sara, "Mind holding that for me. I don't want any of Randy's blood on it."

"Sure," the girl's look showed she was a bit worried for Gavin, but was certainly happy she had been picked out by him.

This was the final straw for Randy. He let out a billow and charged.

Gavin lightly shook his head and rolled his eyes. The moment Randy got close, the smaller boy jumped high in the air and delivered a textbook perfect roundhouse kick to the teen's face. The fact he was wearing heavy hiking boots only added insult to injury.

A pair of teeth flew out of Randy's mouth while his eyes rolled up into the back of his head. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

Gavin landed smoothly and looked down with a smirk, "Robin has a brown belt. I have a black belt. By law, I am certified as a deadly weapon, and I warned you. What an idiot!" Gavin frienda wad of spit into Randy's face before he glanced over to where the others form Team Eight were standing. "Hand to hand combat is about the only thing I think I can do better than Robin, and in this, I am way better than he is. Anyone else want to try me or can we just drop this and go our spate ways?"

All around the circle there were gasps, Awww's and Ohhhh's. More than a few kids where leaning back with cringes on their faces as they saw blood spilling out of Randy's mouth and nose and a few closest to where Randy fell were a bit horrified to find they had droplets of blood spray on their clothing and faces. Those From gteam Eight who saw what happened all backed away from Gavin while shaking their heads.

Gavin ignored it all as he went over to Sara with a big smile, "Thanks."

"You owe me a date when we get back to Dal-Houston!" The girl smiled while handing him the coat back.

A devious grin crossed Gavin's features, "I could have kicked him with my other foot and sent the blood and teeth toward you…"

Sara burst out laughing, "Fine! I'll buy you dinner!"

Gavin couldn't help himself, "How about a kiss instead?"

Sara didn't hesitate. She moved up, wrapped her arms around Gavin, gave him a big kiss right on the lips, And held it for several seconds. As she backed away from the wide eyed Gavin, she had a huge smile. "You best find me some really nice flowers out in your ISTaZ area and figure out how to save them for me!"

This broke the tension. Several kids burst out laughing and more than a few moved over and patted either Gavin, Sara, or both of them on the back, many stepping over a still out cold Randy. A few even teased about a future academy wedding.

Mrs. Rockland moved up to Randy and pointed to a couple of Explorer cadets who had been manning the mess hall. "One of you grab the shuttle and get him to Station Six. He is going to lose these teeth if we don't get him to a real med bay in the next hour or so and if he doesn't have a concussion I'll eat my hat."

Jasper moved up and looked down. "I was Team Five's Primary. I saw Robin and Gavin practice. Gavin is one of the best I have ever seen. He can break boards with his hands too. I think the only reason Robin is not a black Belt is he happens to be in the same class as Gavin."

"So you were trying to warn me this was a real possibility?"

"Nope," Jasper snickered, "I just wanted a good view."

"Well, you got one."

"Yeah." Jasper grinned fiendishly. "The kiss was very impressive for a pair of twelve year olds."

Mrs. Rockland burst out laughing. "Yes… As a matter of fact, yes it was."

Gavin entered the mess tent and chanced a glance over to the table where team eight was gathering. A couple glanced up but quickly broke off eye contact. His scrutiny was quickly interrupted as a couple of kids from Sara's team sent him some rather humor filled glances and a couple of the other girls scrunched their lips up and blew him kisses.

Fairfax elbowed Gavin as the pair made their way up to the food line, "Now you're stuck carrying a book or something to press flowers in. Way to go lover-boy."

Gavin tried real hard to hide how embarrassed he felt, but the fact the edges of his ears glowed red caused a few others in line behind him to comment. Tasha, the team leader of Team Fifteen managed to slide in behind Gavin, "You know, I'd have tried to test with you every day if I would have known it would have gotten me a chance to kiss you."

Behind Tasha, Ellen snickered, "No hitting on a guy who is already spoke for."

This got another round of giggles from more than a few girls and even a couple of boys. The only ones seemingly not enjoying the merriment was those from Team Eight. They all quickly consumed their meals and sat quietly, waiting for announcements. Conversely, they didn't look around or glare like normal either.

Gavin, food in hand, was flatly relieved to be able to sit at his team's table. No matter how hard he tired to ignore what was going on around him, however, the giggles and grins sent his direction further heightened his discomfort. Even those on his own team joined in with some good natured barbs.

Fairfax, in particular, found the whole thing hilarious. "Gavin, if I could get a girl to kiss me half as good as you just got just from kicking someone, you have got to teach me how to fight!"

Gavin rolled his eyes and lightly punched Fairfax in the shoulder. He could tell he was badly blushing too, but on the other hand, it felt kind of good to be the center of attention for a while. As the best friend of a kid who seemed to exude charisma, Gavin was very used to being in Robin's shadow most of the time. This time, the spotlight was on him, and for the first time in his life he understood there was actually an upside to being a bit more outgoing.

Still, remaining as the center of attention was not where he wanted to be for very long, so there was an audible sigh of relief out of Gavin when Jasper stepped up to the podium.

Jasper did his normal squealing of the sound system to get everyone's attention. He then took a few moments to look over the assembled kids. He noted those looking back at him did so with a hint of eagerness, which was not something the testing week was supposed to be about. Testing week was supposed to be about fear, about hyper-vigilance leading to silly mistakes, about kids staring down at note-puters with shaking hands and even a few tears of worry.

The stress of the testing week was partially designed around weeding kids out who should not be heading out to ISTaZ. Robin and his scheming had taken this out of the equation and it worried more than a few instructors in the camp and even more above him. At the same time, Command had taken a very active and direct interest in this whole group and Robin's Team Five in particular.

Jasper remained quiet for a few more seconds as he drummed his fingers over the podium. Finally, he put on a forced smile and glanced back over his shoulder to the instructor's table to make sure all of them were there. "OK, cadets, you all have really started to gel, not just as teams, but for the most part, a camp. There are still a few who have not joined into this rather unusual unified and cooperative mindset, but for those of you who have, I know I speak for all of us over you… We are proud to have gotten to know you all.

"Still, we have now had two altercations between cadets. This is not acceptable, although in both instances, we feel it was not only justified but needed. However, from now on, any physical violence between cadets at this camp needs to be handled differently. If you really want to fight about something again, before you leave for your zones, come see myself or Mrs. Rockland. We will set a time and have medical teams standing by to deal with the aftermath. Any fisticuffs before the times we establish will result in you being shot with sonic weapons, which you should note, all instructors are now armed with." He patted his side to emphasize he was, in fact, armed with a powerful stunning weapon. "Furthermore, should you not follow this guideline, you will be subject to a full day of hard duty at one of the space stations. This will be overseen by space command marines, and believe me when I say they have been told, should they get one or two of you, to make those twenty-four hours the worst of your lives.

"Any questions?" Jasper barked.

Getting no response, other than some wide eyes, his lips pressed into another tight, forced smile for a few seconds. "Good, so I can assume there will be no more impromptu blows being struck. For those interested in Randy, he will be back for evening testing, but will have to wear a head band to monitor brain function since he did receive a rather nasty concussion. I expect you all to refrain from teasing him about wearing it and should anyone see red blinking lights on it, you need to get one of us instructors immediately."

Jasper had to fight to hold off a look of disgust. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to have Randy removed from the camp for medical reasons. The fact the teen was a team leader, however, made removing him unacceptable by those well above Jasper's rank and pay. Jasper took a moment to look over at Team Eight's table, noting a few looked unhappy about Randy's return while a few others looked relieved. He knew in his heart the whole team would not last three weeks out in the wilderness of Zong, and chances were high one or more of those kids at the table would end up in a hospital transport back to Earth or worse. Jasper didn't take much comfort in the fact his reports and reasoning for wanting Randy removed said the same things.

Over ruled or not, the chance one of the kids looking up from the table might not make it back to Earth bothered him a great deal. Jasper took a moment trying to figure out how to force the whole group of kids to throw in the towel, but he still had to be fair. At least he still had decision making power on where to send the team, so he would put them in the historically safest zone he had available, a zone normally reserved for the youngest group, he reminded himself.

Putting the oldest group in the zone normally reserved for the youngest didn't seem like the right answer, but if it was his only option to try to keep the kids safe, he would do so… He took another deep breath and glanced back down to his morning briefing. "Let's move on to other matters. We are moving into the halfway point of testing. At this point, you all should have a pretty good feel for how we test and what the tests are meant to prove. Because of this, we are looking for that little extra flair of insight before we award an Outstanding mark. Also, because of your study sessions we will send all Excellent and Outstanding marks up for review. We do not want to let our desire to make the tests challenging to you all overshadow your accomplishments."

Jasper glanced down again and felt a shiver of unease shoot up his spine. When he spoke again, it was clear in his voice he was a bit concerned. "This next matter is very important. I need you all to pay close attention."

Jasper made sure the kids were all at least looking his general direction before he continued. "I know you all got a basic science classes on this star system, but there are few things not included. First off, the system is thought to be several million years younger than our home system. Much of this is conjecture, but it seems sound enough based on what we know about Earth. You also know this planet has its own life forms, but with very few exceptions, the native life forms are much lower than the more advanced life on Earth. Because of this, Earth decided to move almost all disappearing wild life here to preserve it. A pair of the continents here is strictly devoted to Earth wildlife and are off limits except for scientific study and advanced ISTaZ training."

Jasper noted a few of the kids starting to fidget and a few others picking at what was left on their plates. To get their attention back he cleared his throat as loudly as he could. "Now, I can see some of you starting to give me the blank stare of a kid listening to a parent. I know, it is the same look I gave my own dad when he started on one of his many lectures…"

Getting a round of snickers, Jasper managed a real grin for a few moments before continuing. "Cadets, trust me when I say this is going somewhere so bare with me for a minute.

"This system is a young one and once in a while there are some problems. One of them is the star at the center of this system. I am sure most of you have been taught Earth's star goes through sun spot activity of approximately eleven year cycles. Peak sun spot activity also means peak activity of solar flares which can interrupt some electronics and even damage some of most advanced micro-tech. Earth has early warning systems and has been able to drastically cut back on damage because of solar flares, do in no small part to their alert systems.

"The same kind of thing happens here. However, the cycles of this star seem to be about every twenty seven years and when sun spot activity peaks, the eruptions off this system's star are bigger, more violent, and more damaging. Also, this system does not have factories below it to replace damaged equipment like Earth does. Instead, when a major eruption occurs, the space stations fold up and weather the star-storm in a gold plated cocoon. At the same time weather satellites do the same thing.

"For those of you still wondering where this is going, we are now squarely in the middle of peak activity from this star. An hour ago a large discharge was detected and is heading this way. We have all day today before the first effects are felt sometime tomorrow. However, weather sats are already shutting down, which means we are going to be in for some crazy weather. Weather does not like to be messed with and with controls going away, the whole planet will try to revert to natural weather pattern. This could take weeks to fully reverse, so those of you going out to ISTaZ, you are going to be in for a potential rough start. Command has authorized those who want to stay back at camp to do so until decent control can be re-established, but this will affect your ability to attend advanced ISTaZ next year. In simple terms those of you who stay back more than an extra two weeks, you will have to attend another ISTaZ next year to be eligible to advanced ISTaZ two years from now.

"The next thing these flares tend to do is mess with radio and microwave transmissions. Because of this, you will have to deal with some communication breakdowns and failures of some of your high-tech equipment. This is something to think about in testing over the next few days. Today may be your last day to use some of the gadgets you are used to relying on.

"Furthermore, each of you will be issued a second emergency beacon, since the last time AdventureQuest had this happen several beacons blew out. If yours does blow, wait one hour before trying to activate your backup. Also, if you are with others who also have dead beacons, I want only one of you to reactivate. Everyone else wait at least another hour, unless you are in an emergency situation. Once out in your ISTaZ, you will need to send an alert as soon as possible should damage to your beacons happen. Calling for replacements is not going to count against you in any way shape or form.

"Finally, and this has the possibility to lead back to one of my earlier points, command has a special award for any team in which every member gets at least one Outstanding mark. Team Five, you only need one member and Team Fifteen you only need two. Teams Two and Eleven already have three with Outstanding marks as well, so it is possible more than one team can achieve what has never before happened. Command asked me to put forth this challenge to you all since it seems like cooperation has become the order of the day around here. Should more than one team have all its members get Outstanding marks, an additional reward is being offered to all who leave this camp with an outstanding grade."

When nothing more was said, Jay, from Team Seventeen spoke up, "What's the reward, Commander?"

Jasper face seemed to light up some, "Unfortunately, I cannot tell you, although I do know what it is and it is a major reward. Should two teams do this, we will be getting a visit from Colonel McKnight, who will announce the offer. I am not at liberty to say any more."

Several kids looked around at each other, more than a little intrigued to hear who might be paying them a visit. Colonel McKnight was none other than the Commanding Officer of the Explorer Corps academy at Dal-Houston. There was not a kid in the mess hall who hadn't seen his holographic image requesting kids to apply for pre-academy testing and training once they turned fifteen.

Robin could see more than a few looking in his direction. Feeling a renewed pressure to help out, he stood. "As long as I pass this morning, I'll offer to help hold another round of classes the rest of the day."

Jasper glanced over with a bit of a smirk. "Private, if you don't pass, half this camp will be in too much shock to test let alone go to an extra class."

This got a large round of laughter, including a couple in Team Eight.

Jasper let things die down, "OK, cadets, get to your assignments and best of luck to all of you."

Robin waited till most of the kids left before pulling Oliver to the side. "Dude, I can feel how stressed you are. Let it go and do your best. I don't care about you getting an Outstanding as much as I care about you looking out for Dillon. We'll get you an Outstanding on another test if need be. OK?"

Oliver looked at the floor and kicked a pebble. "I don't want to let you all down though!"

"You're always going to be a friend no matter what." Robin put his hand on Oliver's right shoulder and used his other hand to lift up the boy's chin so he could look him straight in the eyes. "No one on our team is going to give you a hard time, no matter what you score, so forget about the grade and do what needs to be done."

Oliver blinked away a couple of tears, "I'll take care of Dillon, but I can't let you all down after you agreed to take me in to your team. I'll get and Outstanding today, before the star-storm screws up my chances."

"You'll do fine," Robin stated with total certainty. "See you at lunch."

Oliver took a couple of deep breaths before making his way out to the transport. At first a bit of worry raced though him as he saw everyone from the vision except Dillon. However, just as Mrs. Rockland was calling his name a second time Dillon came around the corner. "Here, sorry, couldn't find my canteen so I barrowed Randy's since he ain't here today."

Mrs. Rockland moved up and looked at the boy's badly blackened eye, "What happened to you?"

The boy didn't hesitate with a response. "I was horsing around with Frank and he nailed me with an elbow on accident.

The woman's face told everyone she didn't totally buy the excuse, but with nothing else to go on and time on the test already ticking she decided to let it go until they were back at camp after the test. She led them to the gear and told them to hurry.

Oliver moved up to his pack and looked down, "Mrs. Rockland, I am missing a securing hook and the battery pack for my infrared goggles is not seated in the charger. He then glanced over to Dillon's pack, "Man, your pouch with your twine ball is empty."

Meghan seemed to take charge as she heard this. "OK, guys, I want everyone to go over each other's pack and find the mistakes. Once you go through the pack hand it off for a second look from someone else and get everything fixed. We are not going to miss an Outstanding before we even get to where we are going!"

Mrs. Rockland watched the kids quickly, but methodically, check over the packs. The couple of items she had messed with which were not found by those inspecting, were found by Oliver as they started to head out. Even though the instructors agreed not to say much, if anything, she couldn't help herself. "Oliver, good eyes and Meghan, way to show some leadership. Now let's move out!"

The next part of the test was exactly in line with what Robin's amazing ability had forecasted right down to Jason and Shane shooting at the overhang of snow once Oliver had pointed it out. When this failed to bring it down, the kids carefully moved on, actually having Mrs. Rockland fly them over the overhang to a new spot so they never crossed under it. Once again, this was Meghan's suggestion and was not something Robin had foreseen.

As the group of kids piled out, Oliver noted Dillon moving to a ledge as if to look down. While no one else took more than passing notice, Oliver could see the slightly older boy's hands start to shake. A moment later Dillon turned away from the drop-off, closed his eyes and took a step back, as he did so the edge of the ledge gave way casing him to fall a great deal faster and more violently than even he expected.

Oliver reacted as fast as he could, but almost missed grabbing the top of the boy's pack. At the same time he felt his left pinking finger get caught in one of the straps and snap. He let out a lout cry of pain, but managed to hold on. Fighting back tears of pain he managed to gasp out, "Someone help!"

Before he could say more Jason, Shane and Lynn all raced to the edge. Lynn quickly grabbed Oliver's feet so he wasn't dragged down while Jason pulled a rope and held on to Shane so the boy cold loop the rope around one of Dillon's safety hooks.

Tears continued to pour out of Oliver's eyes, "Hurry! I can't hold on much longer!"

Mrs. Rockland moved up next to Oliver and latched on to Dillon's pack with one hand while using her other to prevent herself from sliding any further. "I've got him, you can let go."

"No way," Oliver gritted his teeth. "Not until he's tied off!"

Dillon looked up with a degree of astonishment as everyone in the testing group seemed to rally around him. He suddenly realized his actions had not only endangered himself, but pretty much all of the others as well. As he saw Meghan take the rope from Shane, tears of sorrow dripped down his cheeks.

Meghan and Ricky quickly stepped back and wrapped the rope around their waists and started to walk as a team pulling Dillon back up as they went. With the boy secure, the others were quickly able to haul him back safely up onto the ledge.

Oliver finally let go and pulled his broken finger into his stomach and puked from the pain.

Sean moved over and knelt. "I've passed Wilderness First Aid; let me take a look."

It took Jason to all but force Oliver to uncurl so Sean could pull his hand out to take a look. When he did so, it was clear to everyone the finger was broken.

As Mrs. Rockland called for a medical team, Oliver glanced up, still crying, "I don't want to miss ISTaZ!"

Mrs. Rockland patted Oliver on the back, "Son, I'll go up there and get you myself if they don't want to release you. But it's only a broken finger so they may have the equipment to set in down here, so relax."

Dillon looked at the absurdly bent finger and lowered his head, "I'm sorry, man…"

Mrs. Rockland shot Dillon a nasty look, "Son, you damned near got yourself and Oliver killed. What were you thinking?"

Before Dillon could answer Oliver spoke up, "It wasn't his fault. The rock broke from under him. I heard it and as I turned I saw it break off."

Mrs. Rockland moved over to the edge and looked at the fresh break. She nodded slowly, "Yeah, it sure did and I can see where some rocks hit the snow bank below. Once again, good observation skills, Oliver."

"And a hell of a catch!" Meghan spit out with a high amount of praise in her voice.

Oliver used his shoulder to get rid of some tears as he continued to clutch his hand. When he spoke it was clear he was in pain, but was almost getting used to it. "We don't have much time, we may as well finish this." He winced as he started to get back on his feet, but found getting up suddenly easier as both Jason and Lynn moved up to help him stand.

Sean glanced into the cave and winced, "It smells bad in there."

Meghan moved up and played her light inside, "Oh, yuck, there are bits of bone and piles of animal crap!"

Oliver gritted his teeth as another wave of nausea hit him. He shook it off as he managed to speak, "A couple of you ought to get out rifles, the only meat eating things in this area I know of are the lizards and the cats, and since this isn't a mound it's probably a cat." He forced a pained grin as he joked. "We should find a whole different area. I'd prefer to eat lunch rather than be on the menu for it."

This got some uneasy giggles from those around him, but did prompt three kids with laser rifle certificates to pull them out.

Mrs. Rockland glanced over to Oliver, "I can take the group to a new site, if you think you can handle the acceleration. I can have the med team meet us there."

"Let's go," Oliver all but demanded. "I don't want a stupid broken finger to screw up the rest of the test for everyone else."

As the kids moved into the back, all of them offered to help both Oliver and a still shaking and very quiet Dillon get situated. As soon as Oliver felt the lift fans engaged he glanced over to Dillon, "Are you good?

Dillon looked down and sighed. "I know you probably saved my life and certainly prevented me from a medical trip home…" His left foot kicked at the heel of his right. "You should have just let me fall, Oliver. It would have been easier on both of us."

While others in the back of the transport gasped and looked at Dillon with wide eyes, Oliver was quick to counter. "No way, you are still one of us, even if you are part of Team Eight. I also know what happened last night to you…"

"How? Randy made sure…" Dillon caught himself and stopped talking suddenly.

Jason's eyes narrowed. "So are you saying you almost falling wasn't an accident or something?"

Dillon lowered his head into his hands, "The ledge breaking wasn't in my plan. I wanted to slide down and just get a little hurt, but when the rock crumbled…"

Sean slid closer to Dillon, "You almost died and took Oliver with you! What could be so bad to risk your life?"

Dillon glanced up with a bit of a glare, "I'm trapped and it was the only way out!"

"You're trapped?" Jason's held tilted to the side in bewilderment. "What are you talking about?"

Dillon lowered his head again, "You all wouldn't understand."

"Try us," Meghan demanded. "Otherwise, you aren't giving us much choice. We'll have to report this."

Dillon glanced up, with some astonishment. "You mean you're not?"

Jason shook his head, "We don't want to, none of us do. Almost everything Robin has talked about in his testing classes is a need to be united as a whole camp. We'll have your back on this, but only if you'll tell us what is going on so we can make sure you don't hurt yourself or anyone else again. I know you haven't been part of what we have been working toward, since you are in Team Eight, but you have to give us a chance!"

Dillon tried to bite back a sob, but failed badly.

Ricky moved closer to the side opposite of Sean and put his arm over the older and bigger boy, "Come on, my dad always says hiding things only makes it worser."

Jason quickly agreed, "Look, you are about the only sane one in Team Eight, from what I have seen. Let us try to help you."

Dillon forced himself to quit bawling, but tears still trickled down his face as he looked up with a truly miserable expression. "My step-dad was in the corps a few years back, but got moved to scientific study after he started to show signs of OSO… When my mom was killed a few months ago, he told me if I couldn't make it in ISTaZ not to bother coming home cause no son of his, adopted or not, was going to puss out by being anything less than an ISTaZ graduate…"

Dillon broke down again as he continued to talk, "But when I got to Dal-Houston, the only ones I could find to link up with was Randy's group… I don't like any of em, and they really don't like me either… I've always been a loner and never can make friends… I figured if I got hurt I could go back home and my step dad would call it good, or let me try again next year since he can send all his kids for three years, since he was an Explorer."

Between the sobs spilling out of Dillon, he managed to gasp out, "I don't know what I'm going to do! I don't want to get beat up again and I know my dad won't take me back if I voluntarily leave training. He's already said he doesn't want me!"

"What a jerk!" Lynn shook her head in sadness. "How could he put conditions on keeping you after he adopted you?"

"You'd have to meet the guy." Dillon whispered. "He's as dense as a lead brick and as mean as a malfunctioning zap camera."

Lynn had to blink away a couple of tears, "I know saying I'm sorry doesn't really help, but I am sorry."

Dillon managed to give her a nod of gratitude. "I know I could get through this, but I can't… not as long as Randy has it in for me like he does."

Jason looked over clearly confused, "What does he have against you?"

"Frank asked Randy to step down as team leader and him and Kathleen both recommend me for the leader spot since I have passed three tests and have one Excellent grade." Dillon gulped, "Randy got all bent out of shape and told them he'd show why I'd never make a good leader."

"So Randy did give you the black eye," Sean snarled lightly.

Oliver nodded, "And more. He had help. Two others held him down last night. Robin found out about it too late to stop it, and it's one of the reasons Gavin nailed Randy this morning."

Jason's eyes narrowed, "Maybe I ought to ask for a fight time with Randy!"

Oliver shook his head, "Not going to happen, they'll never let him get into a fight as long as he has to wear the synopsis gap monitor on his head. Another concussion, as nice as it would be to see someone give him one, could do permanent injury…" Oliver paused and glanced around, "Robin already added me to his team so I don't see any way he would add someone else, but what about the rest of you? Any chance Dillon could switch up and join one of your teams?"

Meghan let out a short breath, "There is a good chance my team would let you in, especially since Jesse is thinking about asking to go to normal intake. Let me talk to my team when we get back and I'll be able to get you a firm answer. I know Curtis does not want to be the only guy on my team and has been pushing Jesse to stay because of it, and that is the only reason Jesse is still in camp."

"What's wrong with Jesse?" Ricky asked with a bit of concern since he was only a few days older than the boy and his ten year old age had come into question more than once before his team rather reluctantly let him join them back at Dal-Houston.

Meghan shrugged, "Nothing other than the fact he has only passed one test up till now."

Shane shook his head, "Not many of us ten year olds left, I'd hate to see another one go."

Oliver glanced over to both Shane and Ricky, "You guys don't need to worry, you'll both do great. Mr. Montgomery keeps saying age is not nearly as important as the will to do this and you both have it."

Meghan nodded in agreement before she glanced back over to Dillon, "If you want me to ask I will, but no hitting on Sara. I don't want to see Gavin gong all ninja on you."

This seemed to break the tension a great deal as several of the kids openly laughed and even Dillon cracked a bit of a smile.

Jason also spoke up, "If you really want to do ISTaZ, one of us will find you a slot on another team. You just got to promise you will not try to hurt yourself again."

"I really want to do this… but…"

"We'll find you a different team and go to Mr. Montgomery with a reason," Jason assured the boy, "but for the rest of today, you stick with me, and I mean close to me. Let me and the rest of us here be a shield for you until we find you a new slot."

"OK, but if I can't transfer, I need a way out… Please…"

"Trust us. One thing I think we have learned from Robin is we may be on different teams but we are all part of the same camp. We'll make this happen." Meghan assured Dillon.

By the time the transport got to the new location there was little in the way of evidence of the real problem other than the fact Jason decided to stick real close to Dillon.

The medical team was also waiting and did some quick scans of Oliver's hand and finger. The lead medic looked down and shook his head. "We can reset the bones here, give you some bone mending protein shots and fit you with a glove to prevent movement for a couple of days, but it would hurt a lot less if we took you up to the station…"

Oliver shook his head, "The star-storm is coming and I'd be stuck up there. No way. Let's do this."

"This is really going to hurt, son." The other medic warned.

"Just get it done," Oliver growled. "Talking about it is not going to change my mind, but will scare the crap out of me."

The lead medic glanced over to the other kids, "It'd sure help if a couple of you helped hold him down a bit for us. You will need to hold him as tight as you can, the less movement the faster we can do this, and he will jerk some, no matter how much he tries not to. The portable scanner we have won't work properly if we numb the area since it can't tell the difference between medicated tissue and normally functioning tissue. Just leave the arm and hand with the broken finger to us."

Jason and Meghan moved up to Oliver and each grabbed a shoulder. Sean also knelt and put Oliver's good hand in his own. "Squeeze as hard as you need to."

Oliver nodded and before he realized what was going on the younger medic pulled the finger as straight as he could, put the glove on the damaged hand, and attached the scanner while the other medic held his arm out. Needless to say, Oliver screamed and jerked hard. Fortunately, Meghan, Jason, and Sean were able to hold him securely enough to where it only took a couple of seconds to get the glove on.

The pain was not over by a long shot, however. The scanner caused the embedded, electrically charged fibers on the glove to contract and pulsate around the broken finger, forcing the bones to align perfectly. It took everything Oliver had not to beg for them to stop. Finally, after nearly three minutes, the sensor detected perfect placement of all the bones and injected the proper proteins into the right spots while the unit caused the glove to suddenly become ultra ridged around the damaged area and down the length of the hand forming an instant cast while giving him movement in his thumb, index, and middle finger.

The medic handed the sensor over to Mrs. Rockland. "He should be good in two days, but you may want to check it with this before removing the glove. It was broken in three places. You got a damned brave youngster here. Take good care of him."

Mrs. Rockland nodded as she spoke, "Brave is an understatement, and until he leaves for ISTaZ he'll get only the best treatment, I assure you." She sent Oliver a warm smile before returning her attention back to the medics, "I'll have Mr. O'Mally check before we take it off. He was a team medic on the quick expedition we took last year."

She then turned to Oliver, "Very courageous and admirable of you to handle this as well as you have. You OK to continue?"

Oliver took several more deep breaths while Sean wiped tears and snot from his face with a towel out of Sean's own pack.

Finally, Oliver nodded thanks to the three around him and spoke with a trembling voice, showing he was still in quite a bit of pain. "Yeah, but I don't know how I'm going to do the rifle test with my hand like this. I can't hold it the way you all taught me."

"We'll figure something out." Mrs. Rockland assured the clearly worried boy. "You may have to wait on your rifle test until it's healed. We'll grant an exception and test you the last day if needed."

Once again, Oliver got help to stand and had to continue to get help as he saw some stars as he stood. Sean stayed next to him and held his shoulders until Oliver regained equilibrium.

The next hour went by too quickly as the kids thoroughly enjoyed the cave. By this time it came as no surprise to Oliver to find out everything else Robin had predicted came and went. So perfect were some of the things Oliver saw in the vision, it was hard not to point to problem spots before they appeared. At the same time he suddenly realized why Gavin felt like he had cheated. Having this much knowledge about a test before hand was not exactly fair.

As they boarded the transport back, more than a few kids were already congratulating Oliver on getting an Outstanding mark even before the grades were handed out.

Robin, on the other hand, was trying hard not to use his weird foreknowledge as he went into his test. The test itself was almost silly. All he had to do was enter a resupply bunker, get what was needed, report what was taken and/or missing and lock it back up. Of course, there were a few catches and possible glitches they could throw at him, but overall it was about as simple and straight forward as any ISTaZ test could get. At least, so he thought.

Everything changed when Mrs. Anderson told him to prep for a sub-O flight and told him two others were coming with him. Since all the other resupply tests had been done solo, this took all three of them off guard and gave them some nervous jitters. Having Mrs. Anderson was somewhat discomforting in and of itself, since she was a big unknown to the boys. Since there were more tests than instructors, extra ones came down as needed from the space station just for testing week, and Mrs. Anderson was one of them.

While the fact he had partners and was taking everyone suborbital to get to the testing ground seemed really strange, it was nothing compared to where she instructed him to put down. It was flatly un-nerving. It was the larger of the two advanced ISTaZ continents and the spot she selected to put down was over a massive lake. He sent a questioning look over to the woman next to him, but all it got him was a nod. He then glanced back to Steve, the team leader of Team Nineteen, and Jeff from team Seventeen. Both kids looked at the rather desolate land around the immense body of water with wide eyes, and mirrored each other as they shrugged.

Robin took the craft down and did an overwater transition to hover mode, thankful Gavin had explained how it was supposed to be done. It was far from smooth, but he did keep it out of the water, barely.

Mrs. Anderson shot Robin a glance, "You have to be kidding me! No one does it on the first shot… Did one of the other instructors take you for an overwater transition and not log it?"

"No…" Robin let out a relieved breath as the ride smoothed out some. "I'd have been looking at fish if Gavin hadn't talked me through it ma'am." Robin assured the clearly astonished instructor.

"You are quite exceptional, young man," She praised. "I expect you in the academy with or without the rest of your team. You're a natural for this sort of work."

"It's all Gavin and I have ever dreamed of," Robin assured her as he pushed the acceleration up to over three hundred Kilometers per hour showing no intimidation at going so fast. "So, where to?"

Mrs. Anderson pointed to an island off the port side, "Your bunker is right over there."

Even as Robin banked the hovercraft toward the speck of land, Steve frowned deeply, "Why is there a resupply point on an island a good tweleve kilometers from any land?"

Mrs. Anderson snickered at seeing a true look of befuddlement on all three boys' faces. It was not something any of the instructors had seen on Robin up till now, which she found strangely reassuring. "Very good question. The truth is, this is a bonus supply point for teams on Advanced ISTaZ. Each team has one supply bunker in their zone, which gives them a bonus if they get to it. No one is told what the bonus is, and to be totally honest, I don't know either, since my team tried three years in a row to figure out how to get to ours, but we couldn't. As far as I know, only two teams have managed to get to one and those are now just emergency supply points and new, even harder to get to ones, where put into those zones. This happens to be one of the two places kids got to, by the way."

"Oh, wow!" Robin's eyes glimmered with excitement, "When we come back next year we are going to figure out how to get to ours! Guys, get as much info as you can on the area, the wild life, other dangers, and whatever else you can find. We don't know squat about where we are let alone what we may have to deal with."

Mrs. Anderson laughed, clearly amused by Robin's reaction.

Robin glanced over again, "What's so funny?"

"Your quick thinking and just how well Jasper seems to have you figured out are both rather humorous to me," Mrs. Anderson informed Robin. "You know, Mr. Montgomery said you would say almost those exact words when you heard about the bonus bunkers. He also predicted you would take charge once you saw the possible problems with the testing site and start giving instructions even before you were given the actual testing constraints."

"He seems to know what many of us are going to do," Jeff kind of signed. "I swear, he can look into the future or something. When he took our team out for pre-testing camping, he even stopped Denny from getting hit by a falling rock. I swear he knew it was coming or something!"

"He's an Explorer Commander for a reason, Jeff." Steve reminded the twelve year old.

Robin started to respond, then stopped. He had seen Jasper do it more than a few times too, and it was very similar to his own ability. Was it possible Jasper also had this weird capacity? The very fact Jasper didn't seem overly surprised by anything Robin had done up to now and even knew how far he could push those he was teaching, made this insight even more of a possibility. The real question was, what, if anything, this meant. At the same time, Mrs. Anderson kept very quiet, which Robin found odd, given the nature of the conversation.

Before he could figure out what his next step should be, however, he had to focus on the current task at hand. He slowed way down as he approached the island. "OK, now what?"

Mrs. Anderson grinned rather mischievously as she glanced over. "Now, you get your chance at your first command."

"Huh?" Robin gasped.

"You are on the payroll as an Explorer Corps Private, so Space Command came up with a way to see just what you are made of. Since all three of you have passed four tests we can take all day on this if needed. Your friends, and teammates, were briefed about your not being able to lead the study group this afternoon. Gavin and Fairfax have agreed to hold it in your absence."

Jeff looked over to Robin with near panic, "What did you get us into?"

Robin threw up his hands, "I don't know… but I guess it's time to get the testing parameters."

Mrs. Anderson clicked off all electronics to prevent any of them from getting extra information above and beyond what they already downloaded. She then pointed to the back of the craft. "Leave your packs in the craft. Special ones were set up by us and put into the storage locker. Since Robin had you download some data on where we are at, you can take your handhelds, but everything else stays in the cabin. You have until breakfast tomorrow to organize the gear we gave you, decide what you need to resupply with, find the bunker, resupply, and send your report. Also, there could be more to this than meets the eye, so, should you get to the bunker, grab everything you would normally want and take it with you. Robin is your team leader for this exercise. End of briefing. Remember, however, we do have a star storm heading this way so we do need to be back at camp before it hits tomorrow at midday."

"Damn, this sounds a lot harder than it should be…" Steve gulped as he grabbed his note-puter and jumped out.

Robin muttered to himself for a second but as he jumped out, he took control of the other two, "Stay close to the ship and break out your rifles if we have them. Next, we need to spread out all the gear from all the packs and see what we have to work with. We need to find out what we are dealing with and what we have for gear before we do much else."

Jeff looked over at Mrs. Anderson as he stepped out and looked around. "I don't get why we are being given a test like this. Why would we ever end up with equipment we didn't pack?"

Mrs. Anderson leaned back against the craft. "The answer to your question happens to be one of the reasons I am your instructor for this. The last year I was out on Advanced ISTaZ, we… my team… were heading for our extraction point." She paused as she saw the blank looks on the kids' faces. "Once you go through one year of Advanced ISTaZ, each year gets harder. The second year they give you a standard pack and one hour to grab any extra gear you want before you go out and the third year they give you a pack and nothing extra. You have to get to a bunker to get the extra stuff you want and it's never close. They also drop you off in one location and tell you where you have to get to in order to get picked up. If you are not there by the pick-up time, you fail."

"Intense!" Steve stated eagerly. "Man, I hope I get to my third year in Advanced ISTaZ, but I'd be eighteen by then…"

"If you make it though this year and two years of Advanced, you'll get a shot at year three in advanced." Mrs. Anderson assured the fourteen year old. "However, let's not get off track.

"When I was on my third year we were on a hill when a sudden storm blew in off the ocean. We set up camp and broke out the e-domes, but a couple of things went badly wrong. A lightning strike nailed a tree real close to us and knocked four of us cold. I was the first to wake up and found our e-dome had blown away and with it most of our gear which we had tossed inside it while we were out trying to make camp. The other three on our team were not there and neither was their e-dome. Our emergency beacons were all blown out as were our hand-held units. There were downed trees and braches, plus one of my team had been hit with a falling branch and had a broken arm. We ended up making a camp by using our hands to dig out under a fallen tree. We splinted his arm with branches and strips of cloth torn off our clothing and stayed there until the storm broke. We managed to find what was left of our tent and salvaged some stuff, but it took us almost a week, with limited equipment, before we got to a bunker, resupplied, and called for help."

"What happened to your missing teammates?" Steve asked with wide eyes.

Mrs. Anderson let out a very long breath. "Unknown. They are among three of the seventy-eight listed missing ISTaZ kids on Zong since the Corps took over training fifteen years ago."

Robin felt his mouth fall open, "You mean there are kids lost on Zong somewhere?"

"Lost and assumed dead," Mrs. Anderson nodded grimly. "Although, many of them would be my age, or even older now. It used to be way worse. Early on, before ISTaZ training was as good as it is now, lots of kids where badly hurt, killed, or got lost in the vast wilderness of this world. The last fifteen years, since the Explorer Corps took over training, those numbers have gone way down. ISTaZ is still very dangerous, however. For as you have already been told, one out of ever fifteen ISTaZ kids still goes home on a hospital ship or worse.

"Just over a year ago, one team of Advanced ISTaZ kids came across a small yet deep cave with the skeletal remains of an entire team of six which had gone missing almost 30 year ago. Scientists now believe the kids built a fire and it took enough of the oxygen out of the small cave to where they asphyxiated."

Robin cringed and shivered involuntarily, "One of the things Oliver told us was the number one thing about his cave classes was to only build a fire in the mouth of a cave where there was good ventilation and never stay where there is a dead end for very long. Now I understand why."

"Yup, early training was not very good," Mrs. Anderson let out a long breath as she looked down. "And even today, it isn't perfect. After every group ships out of here, I go back to the spot where I last saw my three teammates. Maybe one of these years I'll find out what happened to them…" She glanced up and gave a sad sigh, "But enough about me. This is about you all, and seeing exactly what Robin does as a team leader, especially since one of you is older."

"Older or not, I'm not the one with four Outstanding marks!" Steven all but shouted. "I'm thrilled Robin is in charge and not me!"

"You're a team leader, too," Robin reminded the older boy. "So you should look at this as if it was happening to your team, since they will be looking to you for leadership when things go bad."

Robin then turned to Jeff, "And as your team's resupply guy, they will be looking to you to get them to a bunker and what to do when they get there, so your input is just a valuable on this."

Mrs. Anderson stepped back and noticed how both kids took some strength from Robin's words. Jasper was right; the kid was a natural leader. Yet he was better than most, for he had the charismatic pull to lead while being one of the guys. Even while he was taking charge of the other two, he had already pointed out why they were every bit as important as he was to this effort. Just as impressive, he had done so in a way where they totally bought into it.

Within an hour the trio of boys had a list and had redistributed the gear so they all had key items. Each had a canteen, a day worth of food, and a knife of some sort. The three damaged laser rifles had been broken down to make two working ones, which were taken by Robin and Steve, while they used two sonic rifles to make one good one, which was carried by Jeff. Robin, as team leader, took the one good Sonic pistol.

Robin then went though and put specialty equipment with those who could use it, so he took the water purifier. Robin also parted out the outer wear, giving the insulated poncho to Steve since the two coats where too small for him. Finally, Robin had them divide up batteries for lights and made sure each of them had a light source of some kind.

They then sat down and went through the data they had on the area. This took almost another hour, but Robin had no intension of moving until he was sure not only he, but the two with him were totally straight on what to look out for and to make sure the two moderately toxic plants were first and foremost in their minds.

Robin finally stood, "So, Steve, I want you in the lead and keep your rifle out since there are supposed to be wolves and bobcats in the area. No telling if they are on this island or not, but we need to make sure. Jeff, you keep the solar charger out with the two discharged laser battery packs in it until they are charged, but stay between us. We can't afford for you to fall and accidently break it. I'll take the rear."

"Sounds like a solid plan, but where do you want me leading you to?" Steve almost begged to be given a direction.

Robin shrugged, "Well, first off you aren't leading me, you are leading us. I can't do this one alone. Second, I think we can safely guess the bunker is not along the edge of the island since they would want it sheltered from storms and waves. As big as this lake is, a big storm would produce near ocean sized waves.

"This is just a guess, but they probably wouldn't make access too dangerous, although we know this used to be a bonus bunker, so perhaps it isn't the easiest thing to get to either. The island is just over five square kilometers so I suggest we move in to the scrub trees and make a full loop around the island. Then we can narrow it down. If we find it great, but something tells me it won't be so easy. Keep your eyes open for trials, too, since they would need to resupply somehow and I don't think they are going to drag a bunch of stuff though thorny trees."

"The map showed a rocky plateau at the east end of the island where they could fly in a load of supplies and land up there." Jeff interjected.

"It's an option, but somewhat dangerous since we would have to rock climb and we only have one rope. We look for safer to get to places first," Robin ordered. "Still, if we do not find anything on our first pass around the island, we should look at your idea well before it gets dark. The last thing we want to do is climb rocks in the dark."

Three hours later the kids got back to the lander with nothing to show for it. Robin called a break and set up the water filtration unit, pulled water from the lake and refilled canteens. As he handed them back to Steve and Jeff, he took a seat and broke out a ration pack. Part of him wanted to actively use his power, but with limited food, doing so seemed like a poor idea. "I'm beginning to think Jeff had the right idea from the start. We didn't see any kind of a trail, not even a game trail."

Steve nodded in agreement. "It has to be up there or somewhere on the big hill on the northwest end, and I really don't want to go through all those thorn trees to check the hill."

Robin let out a deep breath, "Every test has a catch in it somewhere. I can't help but think we are missing something really simple here."

"This is supposed to be for advanced ISTaZ, Robin," Jeff reminded him. "I bet things aren't as easy or straight forward on the advanced side."

"Still, Robin may be right," Steve nodded. "It seems like we are missing something."

Robin took a swig of water and rubbed his chin. "Let's start from scratch. We have the gear we have for a reason. What does the gear tell us?"

"What do you mean?" Jeff wondered as he glanced at the pack he was carrying. "None of us have half of what we should and none of the extra stuff we normally carry."

"True," Robin agreed, "but what about the stuff we all have. Maybe the clue is not in what we don't have but what we do."

Steve studied his own pack with a thoughtful look, "What if the answer has nothing to do with the equipment and more about those of us on this test?"

Robin glanced over, "What do you mean?"

"Well there were five of us who signed up for Resupply and only three of us on this island," Steve explained his thoughts. "I guess what I really want to know is why did they give us to you for this test and not the others?"

"For starters, you each passed four tests so you could afford to miss other tests today." Robin reminded Steve.

"So did Dena and she isn't here," Jeff countered.

Robin's eyes arched and he drummed his fingers together. "I don't know her very well, so I didn't know she had passed four tests… So if it isn't just the number of tests maybe it has something to do with what tests we have passed. Steve, what have you passed up to now?"

"I have Laser Rifle, Wilderness Hunting, Spelunking, and just barely got my Land Navigation. I also pre-qualified for Rock Climbing-repelling and Basic Survival before I left Dal-Houston, since I was on Zong last year and took some Rock Climbing and Wilderness classes after I expressed interest in ISTaZ."

Robin grinned, "Thanks to scouts and stuff, I was able to pre-qualify for Laser Rifle, Ballistic Weapons, and Rock Climbing, so did Gavin." He glanced over to Jeff, "I know you got laser Rifle since you got it at the same time as Fairfax. What else do you have?"

"I got First Aid, Wilderness First Aid, and got a passing mark on Emergency Communications last night after failing it my first time. I'd have failed again without your classes. I also have Pre-qualifications in Basic Survival and Wilderness Hunting, since I was also on Zong last year, and went to a ranch. I got interested in ISTaZ and they sent me out with some kids to see if it was something I really wanted to try. I think the only reason I got to come back this year is because I did so good on the testing. My family only rates a one shot for kids coming to AdventureQuest normally."

"Seeing the way the Explorer Corps handles us and ISTaZ training, it kind of looks like they really search out kids who may make good ISTaZ candidates," Robin noted. "Still, they rounded us out pretty well. Between the three of us we have all of the core classes covered, except Wilderness Night Operations and Dangers which is my next test…" Robin suddenly stopped. "All three of us are laser rifle certified and have some kind of wilderness certs as well, what about Dena?"

Jeff shook his head, "She's not so good on wilderness things, most of her stuff is Navigation, First Aid, Emergency Communication, Water Purification, and she totally bombed rifles. She was downgraded to sonic only and had to go through classes before they will even let her test to carry it." Jeff couldn't help but giggle. "She almost shot Mr. Allen in the rear on the range the night before testing started."

"Interesting, just before I passed my first test he said something about taking a laser shot in the butt," Robin snickered. "I have been wondering about the remark ever since he said it."

Steve cringed, "From what I heard from Jose, Mr. Allen came real close to shooting her with his sonic pistol because of how mad he was."

"Real close," Mrs. Anderson added, "and, just to set the record straight, he hid it well, because she didn't miss him."

All three boys cringed. Even with power settings at one quarter normal, a laser shot would burn right though clothing and into the skin leaving a small, third degree burn.

Robin openly shuddered and cringed, "Now I see why he was so grumpy with me on my first test!" He grinned as he glanced back at Mrs. Anderson, "Now I know why all the instructors stand back so far most of the time, too."

Mrs. Anderson rolled her eyes and snickered, "There are a lot of reasons for not getting in front of cadets, but getting shot by one has got to be toward the top of the list!"

This got a good round of laughter out of all three kids, but once again Robin was quick to get them back on task. "So let's take a shot at this and say she was either excluded because she can't carry a rifle or does not have solid wilderness skill certs yet. Since we've seen nothing to indicate large animals, I'm going to go one further and say rifle certification is probably out as well. So we are left with wilderness stuff. The next question is, what does it mean?"

"Just a thought, but it probably means it isn't around the edge of the island," Jeff volunteered. "But we already kind of know since we walked the whole thing."

Steve let out a snort, "Robin already guessed it wouldn't be. But if we need wilderness stuff, then it must have something to do with the two toxic plants. All three of us have a good handle on basic plant ID since it is part of all classes with 'wilderness' in the name. The one thing Zong has, is a large amount of dangerous plants!"

Robin openly grinned as all the pieces suddenly fell into place for him. For a moment he realized he had accidently tapped into his special ability again as he actually caught a glimpse of the bunker in the middle of his mind. He also suddenly understood he used this insight thing way more than he ever knew before now, especially since he had parked the lander only a few hundred meters from the actual bunker. The strange power was part of him and using the insights it gave him was actually part of his daily life!

Since this was the case and he now had the answer he went with it, but he also wanted to involve the other two as much as possible. Seeing them both get Outstanding marks would help him toward his quest to get as many kids as possible from the camp into the academy. "It would be just like the Corps to put the bunker where there are lots of toxic plants! This way, the kids who get to it have a chance of failure even after getting out here and finding it. The last part of them getting the reward would be avoiding the plants!"

Jeff and Steve both let out long breaths as it suddenly clicked with them as well.

Jeff pointed into the scrub trees. "You know, we purposefully avoided the area right in front of the lander because of the amount of Sap-stickers and Itch-weed. I bet you parked us right in front of it Robin!"

Steve lowered his head and laughed, "And I noticed a large grove of scrub trees just up from us, which would be a good way to go deeper, since neither the stickers or the Itch-weed grow well close to them!"

Robin took another deep drink out of his canteen and stood. "Jeff, since you have both Survival and Hunting, why don't you lead us in. I'll switch rifles with you, so you can have a laser just in case. Take it slow and make sure you find a toxic plant free track. Look for a way into where all the problem plants are though, since I'd bet money the Corps stuck it in a spot with only one or two safe ways to get to it."

It took the three only another two hours to work their way in and find a safe way into the middle of the area surrounded by the two problem plants. Another fifteen minutes was spent gathering supplies and getting all three of their packs up to full while adding additional gear they wanted. Finally, another hour was spent combing through the bunker to find out what else was missing before they sent their report up on what they were taking and a few items which were missing.

As they came out the same way they had gotten in, Mrs. Anderson rolled her eyes. "Now, I see why instructors are so amazed by you Robin. Not only have you scored another Outstanding you helped the others to get them as well." She held up a hand held transmitter which had recorded all their actions. The screen showed their grades had already been approved by Space Command.

She paused and patted each of the three on a shoulder before she took a knee in front of them. "This test was about as hard as we could find a way to make one and you aced it, you all did. Let me also add in something you all may find rather interesting. The one thing I left out in my briefing was the fact the team got to the bunker but still failed. Four of the five of them had to be shuttled up to the medical station for treatment because of the blistering caused by Itch-weed and Sap Stickers."

This started a round of conversation from all three of them as they congratulated each other and talked about making sure when they got to Advanced ISTaZ they not only got to their bonus bunkers but would make sure to not overlook other traps and tricks. They also found it rather comforting the testing and forethought the Corps put into basic ISTaZ continued, and even got trickier as kids learned to handle more.

Mrs. Anderson also did something else the kids found surprising. She told them to break out their collapsible poles and fish for their dinner, saying it would be good practice and they had plenty of time. While both Steven and Jeff enjoyed the break and started chatting, Robin couldn't help but notice Mrs. Anderson was purposefully delaying departure till after afternoon testing was over back at base camp and was keeping a close eye on her hand-held screen.

After cooking and eating fish over a camp fire and making sure the fire was fully out, the kids got back in to the lander and Robin ran prefight and plotted a path back to the training camp, Mrs. Anderson shook her head and erased his flight plot. "Nope."

"Nope?" Robin responded with a befuddled cocking of his head down and to the left.

This time Mrs. Anderson's smile was almost creepy. "While this test is over, your next one is just starting."

"Huh?" Steve grunted with wide eyes, "What test… we haven't studied for any extra tests!"

Mrs. Anderson said nothing. Instead she gave Robin another destination. This one was on a huge island, well over 125,000 square kilometers in size just off the other Advanced ISTaZ continent. As Robin punched in the flight plan and sent it up to Space Command, he noted his path was altered to make room for four other craft, all going to the same destination.

Out of curiosity, he pulled up the flight plans of the other landers and pilots and felt a shiver run down his spine. All four were coming from within a few hundred kilometers of their base camp and the pilots were none other than Gavin, Fairfax, Ajax, and the last was commanded by Mr. Montgomery, but showed Oliver as the student pilot. There was a fifth plot inbound to the same location, but it was already leaving sub-O on approach to the landing zone. It had come from the primary space station and the pilot was listed as classified, but it was a large craft and was an Explorer Corps ship. "Guys… We aren't going to be alone!"

"Really?" Jeff looked at where they were going with a raised eyebrow. "Who else is going to be way over there?"

Robin let out a light whistle. "I am sending this to your note-puters, so you can see for yourselves, but while we are getting there, get us full downloads on the area and the continent as a whole since it is only eighty kilometers from the west side of the island we are going to. I've got a really weird feeling about this!"

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