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"Four minutes remaining." Missy was sure that the cold robotic voice was speaking directly to her. It didn't matter that she could look to her left or right to see her squaddies climbing the rock wall around her. It didn't matter that the other rookies were sweating, straining, and in pain as they scaled the surface just like she was. No, at this moment as her muscles screamed at her and her vision blurred Missy knew that the cold, metallic voice was aimed solely at her.
One hand up. Look for the hook. Grab. Pull up. One hand up. She let the mantra repeat in her head, trying to ignore the fact that even the slowest of her fellow squaddies had made it to the top. Her arms stung, trembling whenever she pulled herself higher. The joints in her fingers were on fire. She tried to distract herself by doing the math; she was forced up this wall three days a week, and she had been at the Academy for three weeks. Ten times on this hateful surface. On their first attempt, Captain Appet had assured them all that the course would get easier, that they would soon be able to finish the whole course in the twenty minutes. She told them that someday they would find it easy to run the mile, scale the wall, and make it safely through the attack track to grab one of the nine pendants that hung on hooks at the end of the track.