RAMBO-ING AROUND part 1

(7.50 pm)

"Achoo!" sneezed and shivered Clara in the cold.

Sean is holding a rock, which had retained heat from daytime, radiating heat onto him, handing a rock each to his peers, who are all shivering, Clara has it worst, her wet clothes from the quicksand, making her losing heat fast. Despite so, she refused offering of clothing from her friends, not wanting to decrease their chances for her sake, only agreeing to take more rocks from Sean.

Nature really has a way of screwing one over. The heat has tortured them all day, but just as when they have genuine use for it at night, the desert has other ideas.

Since sand is a horrible insulator of heat, desert night time is freezingly cold, a sharp contrast to the burning heat in the day. A cruel duet of fire and ice designed to maximise whoever is unfortunate enough to end up here.

Compare that with the cadets who had came here willingly to suffer, perhaps Franz is right to call them low-IQ morons after all.

To make things worse, they are not issued night vision equipment for the segment, forcing them to rely on their weapon lights to scan their way for scorpions and cobras, which is no doubt going to increase their chances of being caught, as the nets on their lights can only filter off so much light.

And in a textbook example of Murphy's Law, a search party soon appeared near them, and they immediately closed their lights, getting down in a field of desert gourds, careful to avoid scorpions and cobras. Clara cut off one and stuffed it into her assault backpack. The gourd has strong anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

They waited for the search party to leave, then continuing their way, dragging their tired, hungry and parched bodies forward.

"I wish we came here in September, at least in April," complained Louis. The cadets concurred, as that will be when dates start to bear fruit, the best source of energy and minerals in the desert.

Fortunately for them, the lights of the camp can finally be seen. Checking that it is not a mirage, the 5 of them dashed forward with all of their energy, jumping over rocks and rolling down dunes, all 5 of them collapsing onto the floor of the base upon arrival, thirstily finishing the flasks of water in the corner.

"Numbers 9, 17, 31, 92 and 100 arrived at 8.20pm!" reported an instructor.

Sean looked around the base, finding that only Karl and Erika are there, too worn out and resting in one corner.

He turned to the gate, looking at the beaten-up cadets straggling in, as well as jeeps and helicopters bringing in eliminated cadets. A strange sense of jealousy crept up to Sean and the others seeing the eliminated one, happy for them that their torture had ended.

Finally, at the last minute, the cadets saw Albert and Eddie coming in into the base with the last group to enter, collapsing and rushing to take the water.

It did not take long for the cadets to be once again urged to get up at the orders of the instructors.

"Hungry?" asked Herbert.

The cadets all replied they do.

Herbert laughed, pointing to the spread of food wheeled in. "Today we feel nice, help yourselves!"

Despite feeling that it is a trap, the cadets still stuffed their faces. Even though they are really hungry, the strenuous exercise that they had made eating hard foods extremely painful and uncomfortable, but they know that there is no way of knowing when the next meal may come, given the nature of hell month with its strenuous training, back-to-back courses and almost no time of rest, it is a guarantee that they will not last if they do not eat enough.

The cadets did not have much time to eat before the gathering whistle is blown, and they immediately fell back into formation, some cadets still stuffing food into their lips.

"Grab these night vision goggles!" ordered Herbert, stepping onto a jeep and starting the engine. "5 km dash to shooting position! LAST ONE TO REACH IS ELIMINATED!"

"Déjà vu…" commented Sean, recounting how they had been tortured this way, in South Africa, in Indonesia and in Myanmar.

The cadets mechanically dashed behind the jeep. It did not take long foe cadets to return what they have eaten with vomit.

In the meantime, Bryan headed to the med bay.

"Dr Wang," he greeted Phineas. "How's the cadets?"

During the trek across the desert, a total of 20 cadets are eliminated, leaving 177 cadets. While most of them are "taken out" by the instructors, 9 of them are the result of being rescued under emergency when faced with life-threatening situations: 5 from dehydration and heat stroke, 4 from being poisoned when their thirst and hunger caused them to forget their training and ingested poisonous plants.

"All stable, the chief recommends that we move them to the hospitals to Riyadh as soon as possible," replied Phineas.

Bryan nodded, assuring Phineas that it will be arranged soon.

Phineas, however, seems not pleased with the outcome. Bryan noticed it, urging Phineas to speak his mind.

"With all due respect," said Phineas in Chinese now. "Out of the 1035 cadets who signed up for the Tier 1 selection course, 261 of them are eliminated because of damages to their bodies. Close to 90% of the cadets have been washed out. Right now, there has not been a case of death, but I am afraid if Colonel Franz Schulz continues to keep this up it's only a matter of time before one of them ends up in the martyr graves!"

"Yun Fei," said Bryan in a heavy Ming Nan/Taiwan accented Chinese, addressing Phineas by his Chinese name. "As a doctor, it's of course your responsibility to care for their wellbeing. But you also came from an elite unit, the CTRU, you know what the expectations are, don't you?"

Phineas nodded.

"Our training methods are always improving year after year, in fact, we did not have a case of death over 3 years," continued Bryan. "I know, you have, "special connections" to 2 of the cadets, but so do the instructors with the cadets. None of us like to torture them, we are living people, not sadists. But we cannot let our personal feelings get in the way of our responsibility, right?"

He smiled. "Lieutenant, I hope you can have faith in us."

Phineas chuckled. "Never expected Tiger Soong to have such a side. I was surprised when they chose you to play good cop to Colonel Schulz's bad cop."

Bryan laughed at the reference Phineas made to his Chinese name, Wei Hu, one of the characters meaning "tiger", hence his nickname.

Phineas' worries are not unfounded, as the cadets are vomiting up and down upon reaching the finishing line. Sean had swallowed back his vomit at least twice.

The instructors then asked them to step into light armoured vehicles, with the heat turned on. The cadets hastily boarded, fighting to get a good seat to rest.

The convoy of vehicles drove off, led by a utility truck. Sean looked at the outside of the metal box they are in using the vehicle cameras, hand gripped tightly on his rifle, other hand rested on the door, ready to unlock it. The ammo-bearing section of his body armour, which is fastened to the rest of his armour by Velcro is now pasted onto the back of the seat in front of him. This is to create space for him in the vehicle.

He fought off his urges to fall asleep, his sixth sense as a veteran tingling wildly.

It was not long before he was proven right, unfortunately.

A training rocket disabled the truck that led the convoy.

"RPG!" yelled a cadet,

The convoy immediately backed off as they are fired upon. Sean and the cadets ducked down and retuned fire from the windows. Clara, who is in the same vehicle as Sean, manned the unmanned turret, returning fire with machine guns and missiles.

Soon, heavy firepower blocked their way of escape. To make things worse, an EMP strike took out their turrets and smart systems, forcing them to disembark.

Eddie grabbed his machine gun, rushing forward to set up a defensive position behind a disabled armoured vehicle as cover. In his fatigue and the chaos, he did not notice that he was charging into an enemy line of fire, and had Sean and Louis not pinned him down at the last minute, he would have been eliminated along with 5 other buffoons.

"YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" chided Sean. "You think that you can be John Rambo, run into a fire fight, hip-firing a machine gun and get out unscathed?"

"If you have such skills, why not go act the 69th Blood?" joked Sean sarcastically.