by Kal Spriggs
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“I want pit you against them. Defeat them. The betrayal of your friendship will undercut your own status among your peers. Jade Flight will likely fall apart. Entrant Hayden will be lose status for trusting you. Princess Kiyu will lose status for her loss to a low-born former pirate. Prince Ladon will likely perceive that you are nothing more than pirate scum and I can use my influence to convince him you are likely to self-destruct, and thus not worth further concern.”
I would only have to pay a small price, I thought of Kiyu’s story, my soul.
Could I betray them, just for the opportunity to maybe get an assignment where I could escape?
“I won’t betray my friends,” I told him.
A look of frustration flashed across his face. “You say that now, but think on this, Vars. Your friends? With every victory, they become an increasing threat to Prince Ladon. And so long as he perceives them as a threat, he will continue to act to defeat them.”
“If we finish at the top,” I asked him, “would that potentially put us all in a position of strength, one where he wouldn’t want to move against us?”
Mikhail Dyer sat back, his eyes narrowing. He shook his head, crooking a smile, “Ambitious, but why not aim for the very top?” He sighed, “Assume that you make it to the very final round. Not just you, but others of Jade Flight, you will not be required to fight. Instead, they will send in the top teams from last year’s entrants to defeat you… or until you best them all.”
“King of the hill,” I muttered.
“I’m not familiar with the term,” Dyer frowned.
“A child’s game I played in the Barrens,” I told him quickly. I didn’t know if they played a game like that or not. But I had back on Century. It was a slip and I really, really hoped he wouldn’t realize the significance.
“They’ll send last year’s final round, all six teams. Depending on how your TBA-T’s record hits, you’ll be awarded a final score. The final team will be the first place team from last year.”
“If we beat all six teams, we’re tip-top, and that’s probably going to be enough influence that Prince Ladon won’t want to move against his cousin, right?” I asked.
“Prince Ladon’s team finished first last year,” Dyer told me. “What happens if you manage to win is that you will critically embarrass him. He will have to have his cousin killed if she defeats him. His father, the Crown Prince, will have Entrant Hayden killed and might well execute a purge of the senior officer corps in the process. Hundreds of senior officers, many of them tied to the highest noble Houses, will be killed. Tell me, does that really sound like a wise decision?”
I couldn’t come up with an answer.
“Accept my offer, Vars, it’s the best path forward for you,” Dyer told me.
“I don’t want to betray my friends,” I growled. “I don’t want to be an outcast. No one would trust me, not ever again.”
Dyer chuckled, “That, my boy, is the very first part of becoming an agent of Imperial Intelligence. Trust, loyalty, these are given to institutions, to ideology. Trust between people is a weak, fickle thing.” He rose from his chair. “I’ll give you some time to come around, Vars. Round three is when you must chose.”
“You’re assuming I’ll make it through round two, sir?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sure it will be quite the struggle, but you seem to succeed at the difficult and excel at the impossible. So yes, Vars, I expect to see you reach the third round.” He stood up, “We won’t meet again until you do the deed. Remember to do it where everyone can see. The embarrassment to them both must be as public as possible.” He stepped out of the room, leaving the door open behind him. “See yourself back to your barracks, will you, Vars?”
***
We went into round two on the first run of the very first day.
Right off the bat we were in a shooting fight with entrants on the other visible platforms. Bounding and firing worked a bit, but shots were coming in from all directions. Sanjaya went down, struck in the leg and then caught in the open as they fired at him. Osmund and I made it to the third obstacle, using the various points as cover. But climbing across that spiderweb of cables while shooting and being shot at was a nightmare. I tagged two more of the opposing team’s people, but Osmund took a hit to his head and went limp as his suit hit him with a stunning jolt.
I took a couple hits on my extremities, my left leg and my right arm. Oddly enough, that didn’t really impede my movement all that much. The quicksilver, I realized. It was letting me bypass my shocked nerves, or maybe it was helping to shunt the electric shock. I didn’t know which and I didn’t have time to think about it.
Looking around, it seemed like most of the teams had been savaged.
I only counted five other entrants still moving. Two from an Silver Flight team, and three individuals left by themselves.
They had given me two weeks to get somewhat back into shape and I pushed myself as hard as I dared, moving along the obstacles, right up until I got to the gates.
I was able to muscle through the first two gates, but the third one, the one that it had taken two of us to get through, I couldn’t budge it. Nothing says I have to go through it, I thought to myself and took a couple steps back and jumped.
I realized my mistake as I left the grav-plate section and tumbled through the air. I was angling upwards, spinning end over end. My first urge was to panic, but I spread my arms and legs out, slowing my spin. Of course, that was when someone started shooting at me.
I was able to turn a bit, bringing my TBA-T around. I picked out the Gold Flight entrant who’d been similarly stopped at the gates just off to my side. I returned fire and one of my hits must have caught him solidly and he went down.
I was actually tumbling, more or less, towards that section and I realized that maybe I had something of an opportunity. I had no way to guide my path, but I stretched out one arm, using my legs to slow my spin. I went past the Gold Flight team’s ladder and the tips of my armor’s fingers just caught on the edge of one of the ladder’s cables. The motion was enough to swing me around and I clamped my hand down on the cable. The mass of my armor swinging around made the ladder shake and spin, but I held on and then managed to get a foot and then my other arm on it.
As far as I knew, there were no rules against crossing over to someone else’s lane. I started climbing.
I got to the entrance to the Gate, just as my feeds on the monitors showed the two Silver Flight entrants starting up the ladder. They had stopped to pick off the other two entrants before they started climbing.
But that meant I had some time to get into position. I hurried through the corridors of the Gate, coming into the central chamber. I didn’t try to figure out which direction they would come from, I just moved into a position near the center of the room and settled down to wait.
It didn’t take all that long. The pair of them split, they must have been watching the outside monitors and known that I made it in ahead of them. One came in from one side, the other from the front of the chamber. But my exosuit’s sensors picked up the sounds of their footsteps and they didn’t, quite, time their movement perfectly. One came in a second or so ahead of the other and I lined up on his head and fired, just as the other one came through the side.
He opened fire, shooting in my direction, but I was down low on the ground and the pulses from his TBA-T went through the air harmlessly above me. I took the second to line up my rifle and fired twice, hitting him in the head and watching as his armor fell to the ground.
Then, I stood up and went to the central platform.
As it raised me up, onto the top of the Gate, all my attention was focused on Prince Ladon. He and the Crown Prince were staring at me. Neither of them were moving, their expressions, though, were seething. Now, I thought, I guess I have a decision to make.
***
Chapter 24: The Best Of A Bad Lot
The good thing about go
ing first was that I had plenty of time to think. The second round went by fairly quickly, actually. I’d underestimated how many people they eliminated in the first round. It wasn’t just those who didn’t finish. It was the teams who finished poorly or with the worst times. They had three thousand entrants to filter and they took a very callous approach to doing so. The vast majority were filtered out. I’d made it only by virtue of how many of the competition that my team had eliminated in the first few seconds and then by having two of my three people survive to the end.
The second round was judged even more harshly, and only for the quality of my shots, scoring headshots on the last two opponents, and the relatively short time on the course from my “creative” approach of bypassing several obstacles, did I squeeze into the selection for the final round.
Osmund and Sanjaya wore stunned expressions as we watched that score stay in the upper tier. Slowly, as more and more entrants ran through that second round, it creeped downward, here and there. But at the end, after all the other teams had run it, we were among the top six.
In fact, we were number six.
Jonna’s team finished number three. Kiyu’s team had finished number one.
Three of the top six teams were Jade Flight. In fact, overall, Jade Flight had done very well, with all twelve of our teams reaching the second round. There was cheering as the final results for the second round posted. There were some sour expressions, too, especially from Isagani who had finished ninth, overall, but that wasn’t something to complain about.
I’d had more than my fair share of luck to get there, but I was going on to the sixth round… and now I had decisions to make.
Not more than a minute after the results posted, Dekkas Richardson called in over. His expression was stern and I could tell that he wasn’t entirely happy with what he was about to say. “Entrant Vars, congratulations on making the final round.”
“Thank you, sir,” I answered. I wondered what he really thought of me. He was a hard man to read, but he’d shown me moments of surprising empathy, like when he’d saved my life. Even so, he’d stood by while our instructors had beaten us for minor infractions. He’d presided over our formal meals like a petty tyrant. I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. Still, I’d worked hard and the congratulations, whether entirely sincere or not, did mean something to me.
“I wanted to see what your intentions are, going into the final round,” he began. “Jade Flight has typically upheld our honor. Some other flights have engaged one another, but we haven’t.”
“I understand, sir,” I told him. It wasn’t an agreement not to betray that trust, but I wasn’t telling him I was going to do it, either. I could see he wasn’t happy with that response. Then again, since I knew Institor Dyer was probably listening to this conversation as well, I didn’t want to tip my hand. Hard to do that when you aren’t sure what to do, either.
My heart told me not to betray my friends. My head cautioned that if I didn’t, it was likely that Prince Ladon would pull out all the stops to have us killed. His father might well trigger some kind of civil war in the doing. Good, an angry part of me thought, serves the bastards right. They want to conquer and enslave entire worlds.
But I thought about Osmund and Sanjaya. They didn’t want to conquer anyone. They just wanted to better their lives. I thought about the others I’d worked with in Jade Flight. They weren’t bad people. I hated their system. I hated the way that they talked about bringing “greatness” to worlds by conquering them, but I couldn’t fault them for their dedication, their hard work, and their willingness to serve a cause greater than themselves.
Could I consign them to bloodshed on a huge scale? Any kind of infighting was bound to be brutal. Their military was too vast for it to be a quick thing. Worse, Crown Prince Abrasax had shown disregard for civilian lives already. Would he hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction on cities and towns that rebelled? Would he gas places like the Barrens if he felt they needed to be dealt with or made examples of?
That was the potential future that Mikhail Dyer had warned me about. That was what could happen if we beat Prince Ladon at this stupid game. The thought that people very well might die in large numbers over the results of what should have been a friendly competition instilled barely contained rage.
Dekkas Richardson stared at me, “I thought I might suggest that you think about who you want to emerge in first ranking, Vars.”
I blinked, not really certain what he meant. “I figured the best team, whoever managed the most kills of opponent teams, would emerge first.”
“Yes,” he nodded, “but that can be… swayed. There are some who think that it would be good if Entrant Hayden finished first this year.”
“She’s got the skill for it, sir,” I answered, still not entirely understanding.
“Others think Princess Kiyu would be better, but I think that would probably provoke her cousin, a response that might lead to unfortunate secondary events.”
My eyes went wide as I realized what he was dancing around. He was thinking about the second and third order effects and he was trying to warn me. But I wasn’t sure what he was asking me to do.
“Assuming Jade Flight makes it to the final chamber,” he went on, “and they send in last year’s top six, who do you think will do the best?”
“It depends on how that goes,” I answered, wondering if he’d give me some more information. I didn’t like this, not knowing where someone else stood, not knowing if I could or couldn’t trust them.
“They send the first five teams in together. They come in on direct lifts into the final chamber, through various entry points. It doesn’t happen often that a flight has two or more teams left at that point, but when it does, flooding the chamber with fifteen opponents normally finishes the competition. Only once has it gone to the final team. That happened last year, with Iron Flight.”
Iron Flight had been dissolved this year. “Prince Ladon’s team?” I guessed.
“Indeed,” Dekkas Richardson nodded. “He defeated all of the teams. The first to do so in the time since we implemented the Tangun’s Gate exercise. Thirty years and there has only been one. Although…” He let out a slight breath, as if trying to buy himself time to figure out how to say what he was about to say. “The strange thing about that one is that all the kills of all the teams were registered to his rifle. Neither of his two team mates who made it to the final chamber, nor either of the other two members of Iron Flight from the other team scored any hits on those sent in to fight them.”
That didn’t make any sense. I mean, if they all lined up and let him shoot them—
My eyes went wide as I realized what he’d meant. That was probably exactly what they had done. The prince had probably made quiet arrangements. Last year’s final round teams had come into the Gate’s central chamber, let him shoot them, and then his team had emerged victorious, with the first ever complete victory.
“It would be quite the accomplishment if someone else could match that feat, though admittedly, they would be unlikely to match defeating all the predecessor teams on their own,” his meaning was obvious, if someone did it for real, without having the other teams give it to them, it would mean a lot more and people would take note. He wants Jade Flight to accomplish that.
“The Drakkus Empire needs heroes like that, I suppose,” he told me, “symbols like Prince Ladon. It would mean quite a bit for many of us. Especially if it were Entrant Hayden, who many would like to see return her father’s House to glory.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but I gave him a nod, “Yes, sir, that would be pretty impressive.”
“Dismissed, Entrant Vars,” he told me.
I walked away, still not entirely certain whether I understood what he’d been telling me.
***
“Well,” Jonna told me, “here we are.”
“Yeah,” I gave her a nod, “here we are.”
I had just finished working out for the third time of
the day. The length of the second round had given me some time to get back into shape. I was still weaker than I cared to contemplate. My stamina was shot, but I was getting better.
I didn’t know if it would be enough, so I worked out three times a day and tried to build myself up again.
“You think she’s going to be satisfied with not fighting Jade Flight?” Jonna asked.
“Do you think she will fire on us?” I answered her question with another question. She scowled in reply. Then again, she knew the answer, she was trying to see if she could convince me to favor her versus the Princess.
Right at the moment, I was wondering if no matter what I chose, it would be the wrong choice. The best of bad decisions. Maybe I should have left, should have abandoned them both. Then they would probably be dead, could I have lived with that?
“What do you think the Crown Prince will do if you finish number one, if you beat out his son from last year?” I asked her.
Jonna looked away, “I’m not sure it will come to that. I don’t want it to come to that.”
But she did. She couldn’t shoot Kiyu without violating the honor of Jade Flight and disgracing herself. I could, but I wasn’t sure I could live with the betrayal. It wasn’t just an emotional thing on my part, either, because if I did betray my flight then I would be an outcast and probably would not survive the rest of my time here. If Jonna was the only Jade Flight team to reach the central chamber, she could fight the other flight’s survivors and win, they wouldn’t send last year’s victors to fight her.
The one who’d be losing was me. I’d be lucky if anyone would deal with me, I’d be a pariah at the Institute until I found a way to escape. But even if that wasn’t terrible, it would still mean that Crown Prince Abrasax might view her as a threat and trigger his purge.
It wasn’t a real solution, because it came back to the civil war that would likely kill a whole lot of innocent people.
It didn’t matter who I chose, unless I disgraced myself early on and took them both out, I’d likely trigger some kind of violent reaction. “I need to shower and get some rest. Tomorrow is the big day.”
