Sharp Shooter

Basic Begins

"Drop and give me 50 push ups!", Sterling shouted.

Sorra and I were on the ground nearly instantly, doing regular pushups while Navi and Ivan were doing push ups that were modified for Feral bodies. Ivan had his front legs spread out as far as they would go and his claws dug into the sand. He lowered himself as far down to the ground as he could before pushing back up. For the first 25, I was fighting with Sorra for the lead. I began to catch up around the forty mark, caught her at 45 and then pushed the 50. One by one, the other dragons finished the push ups and then once everyone was standing, Vortex shouted.

"Down! Do another hundred!"

Sighing at myself, I was back down on the ground, starting my count at zero. This time Sorra stayed ahead of me and was done with her hundred and trying to catch her breath while I was still around the 75 mark. I was the second or third one to finish and Ivan and Navi followed me quite closely. I forced myself to take deep breaths as the others finished and tried to ignore the fact that I could feel the frontal muscles in my shoulders starting to ache, like they had that day Dad and I helped some Rebels raid a KA base and I had stayed on a McMillan Tac-50 for nearly four hours, putting rounds downrange for a good chunk of that time. Once again, everyone finished and stood up. I could hear the other dragons fighting for breath now and some of them sounded like they might die, already.

"Hmmm", Sterling mumbled, loud enough for everyone to hear, "what you think Major?"

"I think their doing too well", Vortex snapped, "we should fix that!"

"Why didn't I think of that?", Sterling grinned, "down! 200 wing ups!"

I found a smile creeping up on me as I hit the ground once again and started the 200. I propped up on my wings and started the up and down motion, trying hard to keep myself steady as I did, knowing that if I happened to fall over, Sterling would probably make me start over, and he would probably make me do it while he stood on top of me.

"Balance", I said slowing my pace, "not speed."

I shut off everything else and tried to focus only on up and down, and on my balance. I moved my wings out slightly further than I had them and adjusted the way I had my boots planted in the ground, finding that I was able to almost completely eliminate the wobble, but there was still enough of it that I knew Sterling and Vortex were noticing.

"Don't worry about them!", Dad's voice echoed in my head, "it's just you Private!"

"Just me", I thought as I shifted my thoughts back to my balance, "just me."

I wasn't sure when it was that I finished, but when I pulled myself up after the 200th wing up, I found Vortex was right up in my face, staring me straight in the eyes. After about two seconds, she walked back over, whispered something to Sterling and then he turned to the crowd.

"For now, were done with strength, now on to speed and endurance, Line up, three laps around the track in ten minutes or less."

Sterling lead us all to an asphalt track that looked like the road that John and I had been in while we were in the canyons this morning. Judging from what I could see, I assumed that it was at least a two..possibly a two an a half mile course. Assuming the greater was true, that was around eight miles in ten minutes, you could say the odds weren't exactly in our favor. Once again, I had to focus more on balance than speed because if I decided to be stupid and over tax it, I'd end up biting track long before I could lap it. I made sure that only thing I was focusing on was the black tarmac beneath my boots.

"GO!", Sterling shouted.

My off the line was rather sketchy as I got rammed a few times by dragons that were easily 5 times my size, but once I managed to find some decent space between the others, I was able to keep a pace that kept me in the solid middle of the pack, I wasn't going to gain much on the four legged Ferals or the Drakes, but at least I wasn't losing distance either. By the end of the first lap, my lungs were starting to scream at me and my chest was beginning to tighten, similar, once again, to the raid on the KA base and being on the sand for four hours. If I was even remotely accurate, My time for the first lap was 3:20. Assuming I was able to keep within 2 seconds, more or less, of that 3:20 lap time, then I would finish the track just as the timer clicked zero. By the mid way through my second lap, I knew how it curved, so I closed my eyes and just let my feet do the work for me. I could hear dragons falling behind me and not getting up, they were already that exhausted. In all honesty, I was feeling it sooner than I wanted to, but there was no way I was going to give out just because I was tired.