In the end, they never got to climb to the summit of the mountain for extreme environment tactical training. But Ritchie kept her disappointment to herself. She was pretty sure she was the only one feeling it. Except maybe for Colonel Hansen.
Instead, all the cadets huddled together in the cavern, only sporadically able to connect to the academy and receive messages from home. It might have been a recipe for cabin fever, but the colonel knew just how to keep them all busy. Everyone was constantly either on guard duty over the cell where Joosten was being kept or over Wyder’s body, or walking a watch duty through the cavern day and night, or climbing ever deeper through the cave network around the cavern. Hansen told them this was a mapping mission, but Ritchie knew for a fact all those ca
