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But two-thirds in, he hit his limit.
Almost to the top of a sheer face of metal, interspersed with the barest of handholds, Bar’in stopped. Between him and the lip of the wall—the top of the obstacle and his destination—stretched flat, featureless empty space, at least as long as Bar’in was tall. But stretched out across the surface like a spider, Bar’in had no leverage to launch himself up to reach it.
He hovered at least a story above them, frozen against the wall.
His forearms shook.
“Tar.” Smith reached back and found the sleeve of Tar’s uniform, yanking him up. “Tar, catch him.” Tar stumbled forward with a foggy burst of confusion in his smell and Smith shoved him as Bar’in’s fingers lost their purchase. “Catch him!”
Fal’ran's heart surged into his throat as Bar’in slipped from the wall in slow motion and plummeted down to the hard-packed earth below. But before he hit it, Tar appeared below him, his immense body swallowing up Bar’in’s slight frame and bringing him down to the ground. Fal’ran exhaled a strangled breath as his heart resumed beating.
For a split second, Bar’in didn’t move—his feet on the ground, still wrapped in Tar’s arms, his face pale—then he pushed Tar away from him, struggling out of his grip as the wisps of terror in his scent blew away in the wind.
“There, I did the course,” he snapped at Smith as he stomped back. “Happy?”
“Yes, actually I am.” Smith grinned at him. “You did very well.”
Fal’ran expected an acerbic snarl and Bar’in’s pretty face did twist into something, but then he ducked his head and shuffled away to plop himself down onto a boulder, taking his scent with him before Fal’ran had inhaled enough to read it.
“Tar.” Smith waved the big man still standing at the base of the wall that had thwarted Bar’in toward the course’s start. “Since you’re already up there.”
His expression blank, as though he hadn’t saved their smallest teammate from breaking his neck seconds ago, Tar made his way to the starting ramp.
Smith lifted his hand again. “Ready…Go!”
Tar barreled forward with all the finesse of a long-haul freighter. He was strong as hell and fast too, but agile he was not. Watching him climb the ladders and rope net, Fal’ran wondered if it would have been more efficient for him to have just ripped the posts from their foundations and tossed them aside.
He didn’t have Bar’in’s quick-thinking either and he got stuck on a complicated obstacle of bars and ropes and planks, climbing his way up to a platform only to find his way forward blocked by a series of metal bars too tightly placed for him to squeeze his barrel chest through.
“And you’re dead.” Smith raised his thumb and forefinger up like a gun after Tar’s hesitation stretched on for more than a second. “The Insects have shot you down.”
Tar’s shoulders slumped, but that was the only sign he gave of any disappointment, and he climbed back down the way he’d come. And yet, Smith smiled at him when his feet hit the ground.
“But well done.” Smith tossed his head toward a stump. “Sit down, get some rest.”
Well done? He hadn’t even made it as far as Bar’in. Who had apparently done very well. Fal’ran curled his lip in disgust. Smith was just full of positive affirmations today, wasn’t he? As though that was going to make them any better.
“Alright, Fal’ran.” Smith’s scent turned sweet with amusement and Fal’ran’s stomach did a strange little flip at the pleasantness of it. “We all know you think you can do better. Get up there.”
Fal’ran shook off the weird desire to inhale Smith’s laughing scent more deeply and stalked to the starting mark. “I know I can do better.”
He lined himself up and looked to Smith to count him off. But his stomach did the same little flip when he met Smith’s blue eyes and knowing smile, and he looked quickly up at the ramp instead. Smith would yell. Fal’ran didn’t need to actually look at him.
The human’s clear voice echoed in the clearing. “Ready…”
Fal’ran had been ready as soon as he’d set eyes on the course. He’d landed on this planet ready.
“Go!”
Fal’ran dashed up the ramp, his long legs chewing up the distance, then ran down the other side, letting his momentum take him even faster. The exhaustion in his muscles evaporated with the rush of the challenge, and he charged the next ramp with a manic grin on his face.
Swinging across the next bars was easy. Running over the balancing beam was as simple as walking down the projects’ main road. The rope net could have been a ladder for how quickly he scaled it.
Well done, Smith had told Tar. Fal’ran would show him what well done really looked like.
Sprinting to the obstacle that had tripped up Tar, Fal’ran called up his memory of watching Bar’in scale and flow through it like water and mirrored it move for move. Before Smith could even think about finger-gunning him to death, he’d rolled into the net on the other side and towards the next few jumps and vaults.
When he arrived at the metal wall that had almost killed Bar’in, Fal’ran didn’t even blink. Size and strength weren’t everything—Tar proved that—but they helped with some things. Like making the last leap to the top of this death trap.
