The Trustee hesitated, watching as one of the male humans started vomiting. “They are not ready.”
“You have two days.”
***
"You have a curious mind-set, you three," Ammon told them through a mouth full of boiled white rice. "The probe chose you, yet you do not welcome displays of skill and death." He slurped loudly from the copper cup of foul-tasting broth. "Your predecessors had no such qualms."
Peter played with the chopsticks provided, twirling them between his hands rather than using them to futilely stab at his bowl of rice. "So there have been others in the games?"
“Yes.”
"What are those things out there?" Jessica asked.
"They are human, or close enough. Derivations of a human vessel, reformed into the perfect piece."
"They look like..." Georgy didn’t have to finish the sentence; it was on Jessica's mind as well.
"Demons? Is that your final interpretation? They do not appear ‘demonic’ to me," Ammon answered between mouthfuls. "But then, my experience may differ, to yours. I have been here a long time, after all."
"So, why do they look like monsters?" Jessica pressed.
"Monsters, you say?" Ammon turned stiffly to capture her with ancient eyes. "They are us, humans, made perfect."
"But they're so small; they must be five feet at the most, and... why the horns on their heads?" Jessica asked after a mouthful of rice. She noticed Georgy's gaze, a raised eyebrow, directed at her. "And the red skin?"
"Their heads are weapons, why should they not be? The pieces need not be pretty baubles; they are fighters. They have strength, speed. They don't need to be giants, they need precision, coordination, tactics! This is what you are here for, Jessica; leadership. It has been five hundred years by the ship's reckoning since the last humans were accepted into the games. Jessica, they need this. They need your spirit!"
Jessica coughed up a spittle of rice.
"Five hundred years? Just how old are you, Ammon?" Peter asked.
"Old enough. Our Trustee saw to it that I would live long enough to teach. Such was my wish, but it has been too long since I taught, and I will not have long enough. I long for the company of humans, even as strange as you three are to me. I lived at a time when the Great Pyramid was just a set of plans in my father’s mind. You will meet him, our Trustee, later. So... to the point of the games. Should you do well, you will be rewarded."
"Rewarded, as in... we could live forever like you?" Georgy asked.
"Forever?" Ammon barked a short laugh. "You could strive for it, yes. There is so much more than infinite life. Limitless energy, resources, technology. Depending on your progress in the games, you might be rewarded with all of it. Chief among the rewards, I believe, is the ability to go home."
All four of them remained quiet a moment. Georgy and Peter exchanged slightly worried glances with Jessica. "The probe said we would be returned at the end of the games. I didn’t imagine that part, did I?" asked Jessica.
"Did it?" Ammon burped before gulping down some more brown broth. "There is a good chance you will earn enough in the games to return, but it is certainly not guaranteed. I chose a different path, as you may have guessed. I—"
Suddenly, they heard a large, echoing thunderclap from somewhere above them.
Ammon leapt to his feet. A horrible screeching sound blared, and a bright yellow light flickered throughout the room from multiple points in the ceiling, walls, and floor. "Stay," Ammon commanded with an open palm. He ran out of the room, clumsily kicking over Jessica's small cup of uneaten broth on the way.
Georgy was already on his feet and following Ammon out of the room. Peter and Jessica moved as well. They went into the large hall where ten thousand demons had stood just minutes earlier. Far in the distance, on the opposite side of the room, Ammon was running towards an open doorway rimmed in red light. "What's happening?" Jessica yelled over the screeching.
"Trouble," Georgy wheezed while running. Georgy, Jessica, and Peter piled through the door at the far end of the hallway. A maze of dark blue corridors greeted them, bathed in darkness. A line of red lights pulsed at them from the darkness, pointing like arrows. They ran between the red lights until they found the one open doorway amongst many that were shut. Ammon stood just beyond the door, his shoulders slumped. Beyond him was a shimmering blue field, the field flickered from the other side of a house-sized room. Beyond the flickering field was open space. Black soot, red glowing pieces of debris, and dozens of dead demons floated around the room.
"What happened?" Jessica eased her way past Ammon to get a better view of the carnage. Space beyond the ship's hull was full of light and movement. Several orbs, like the probe that had brought her to the Inveigled Ambassador, flittered around the hole, trying to pull bits of hull back into place. Instead of a star field several distant starships lay like beached whales against the backdrop of a large planet. The planet itself was covered in millions of tiny rectangular bricks, but could only have been plots of land, like fields of farms as seen from the clouds on Earth.
"Your rivals have struck," Ammon said with a measured breath, "I fear we will enter the games prematurely.”
***
They would be fighting the wasp-men's soldiers.
The wasp-men, friends of humanity’s Trustee, used yellow demons. They had large eyes, four arms, and sharp teeth. Jessica didn't like the pointed teeth. "You have two hours to finalise arrangements," Ammon told them, "Jessica must lead on the ground. Peter will be her subordinate. Georgy will observe from a special platform and call out troop movements. As you have had such a limited amount of time to train, Georgy, it is up to you to keep your team informed of the rules during the battle."
"Why couldn't we look at the rules now?" Georgy asked.
Ammon shook his head. "There is no time, I can describe the basics on the trip to the prepared battlefield regarding points and victory conditions. For now, though, you must decide on the tactics, your troop setups, arms and armour, as well as mounts. Anything added to your forces will deduct from the overall points, more advanced or longer-ranged weapons will reduce your points at a greater rate than basic close-in weapons. You must think economically, but also weigh in the loss of troops..."
They boarded one of five sleek, black shuttles that were transporting over a thousand demons and a hundred small demonic horses. Metallic breath from hundreds of demons supplied a constant white noise to Jessica's sensitive ears.
There it was, their arena. Blood rushed around her circulatory system as she stared down at the chequered giant of a planet.
"The Everworld," Ammon told her. It was immense, stretching so far across her vision that space disappeared in her forward field of view.
"How big is it?" she wondered aloud.
"Big," Peter replied. "The ship's computer told me it... well it's damn big."
"Were those its exact words?"
"Err, no. It's bigger than the sun. I mean, much, much bigger."
Jessica believed him. The chequerboard pattern of different sections of land and water started to sharpen and grow. The brown sections divided into many smaller brown sections of different shades. Reds and blacks formed as splotches across the rectangular patches, like mountain ranges or rivers of red rocks. The pattern repeated for other rectangular sections of the chequerboard.
A few more minutes of descent towards the planet revealed yet more rectangular fields within the smaller rectangular patches. It looked like an endlessly tessellating pattern of rectangular blocks that kept growing out of the surface of the Everworld. The horizon remained at what seemed to be a fixed point, as if they had not descended from the Inveigled Ambassador at all, even though Jessica knew they had traversed tens of thousands of kilometres. Her head was spinning. She looked at the large, smooth windows within the shuttle's sides. She made out four small stars that were the other shuttles carrying the rest of the demons, each of which was several hundred kilometres away.
The four stars were barely visi
ble against the armada descending towards the Everworld's surface. Thousands? Millions? Maybe billions of starships, she had no idea how many there must have been. A good number were whizzing past them too, ascending back into space and yet more moved at perpendicular angles, criss-crossing all over the viewports.
Large light sources shone down upon the Everworld, dozens of them, as bright as the sun. Jessica had to shield her eyes from the glare and as she did, so she thought she saw giant structures, like nets, encasing the bright lights within. "Tame stars," Peter informed her, "they're white dwarf stars, probably with different amounts of output for all the different aliens across this world."
"They're using stars like mobile lamps?" Georgy asked. "How do they orbit this place?"
Peter rolled his eyes. "Your grasp of orbital mechanics astounds me.” Sarcasm was dripping from his tone. “Time to stop worrying old boy; they seem to have a certain mastery over the physical problems around here. If you’d noticed earlier, the Inveigled Ambassador was orbiting a small planet that looked a lot like Earth. I think the Earth-like planet was orbiting one of the white dwarfs, which is orbiting this giant... thing. And look!” Peter pointed below them through the forward viewscreen, “Asteroids orbiting another planet; we’re travelling over it now. There are people down there; you can see lights on the night side. The white dwarfs must have their own miniature solar systems. Amazing.”
"What, exactly, is this thing?" Jessica said while choking back some broth she'd slurped down less than an hour ago.
"The Everworld?" Ammon raised an eyebrow, surprised they had not worked it out. "For you, today, and for others inhabiting the nearby galaxies, it is the host of a billion wargames."
CHAPTER FOUR
Four thousand armed and armoured pikemen marched in step down the shuttle ramps and formed up along the brown battlefield’s length. It smelled different here, earthy. Adrenalin swam through Jessica’s veins and she felt exhilarated at the power her voice commanded. Five thousand soldiers. Four thousand pikemen, hundreds of archers, axemen, and cavalry, she commanded all of them. “Make sure the cavalry covers the flanks of our army,” she said to Peter. A small group of red-skinned soldiers formed up around her. They were her shield bearers, an elite bodyguard with large shields, long swords and better armour than the rest of the army.
“Yeah, yeah.” Across the field fat, bug-like shuttles were disgorging yellow-skinned warriors. She could see her team’s final objective on the far side of the yellow army, a small fortress that she would have to take control of.
“What are those?” Jessica asked when she saw something large crawling down the enemy shuttle ramps.
“They look like... hippos, or giant bears,” Peter said.
Jessica drew a sharp breath and turned to look down her long lines of spears.
“I hope they have weak points.”
***
Ammon watched, feeling helpless, while the two armies clashed in the middle of the brown field. “No, imbeciles!” The yellow creatures that made up their opponents managed to surround a large part of the Terran army and the large beasts crashed through Jessica’s pikemen. The beasts died, but not before wrecking the pikemen’s lines. Red cavalry led by Peter charged into the yellow army, creating a hole for the demons to retreat through. Jessica fled towards the small fort that served as part of the end-game.
At the third hour, the Trustee said, “Calm, Ammon. Our players show promise yet, and Jean’s been given more leeway this time. If all is lost for them, our allies will not humiliate them.”
“Yes master.” Ammon ground his teeth.
***
"Speak up, Georgy, I can't hear you!" Jessica Stanner yelled into her mic. One of her shield-bearers had his head caved in a moment later and blood flickered across her personal force-field. Another shield-bearer sliced the offending yellow soldier’s hand from his arm. Her remaining shield-bearers crowded around and pushed her away from the edge of the battlements.
Jessica's eyes widened when she noticed a steady stream of yellow-skinned warriors from the enemy team leaping from their ladders onto her demons on the parapets. "Reinforce them!" she told her shield bearers. She expected them to protest, her protection was their sole reason for living. Without hesitation the leader nodded at her, barked at the four other shield-bearers and started pushing his way to the front of the fighting. "Catch the bastards on your swords while they fall," Jessica said as an afterthought. One of the shield-bearers had stayed behind, hefting his long-sword in a high-guard to strike any of the yellows should they come close.
"Jess-ic-ha, more enemy warriors," the last shield-bearer grated as he pointed at one side of the castle walls. Red demons armed with large round shields and small axes tried in vain to cut at the hardened ladders that started docking there.
"You hear that Georgy, you prick? More warriors on our flank," she said into her mic, touching her right hand to her ear to block out some of the fighting. “We need some sort of strategy.” She scanned the skies behind the squat three-storey keep they were defending and squinted against the glare of one of the Everworld's stars. She thought she could see him, up high in the observation platform. An enemy arrow flew at her from below, hitting her personal shield right between her eyes. The shield flickered red for an instant, and she jumped back, almost falling off the inside of the parapet to the hard dirt below.
"Calm down," Georgy replied from his observation platform. “I thought you were the medieval expert here.”
One of her archers let loose an arrow into an approaching Yellow. The Yellow screamed and fell off its ladder onto the ground below. Another rubbery yellow arm reached the top of the wall in its place. "There are too many of these four-armed fuckers for our axemen to push back."
"I see that, Jessica," Georgy said. "I'm coming up with something."
"Oh, for f—" she cut off her retort as three of her four shield-bearers returned by her side. Two of them had lost their long-swords and had unlatched the shields from their backs, picking up discarded axes from the ground. The third soldier, the leader, had lost part of his left arm but still held the sword in a one-handed grip. The wounded arm was tied with a scrap of red flag, but small amounts of blood still dribbled onto the ramparts.
"Our soldiers shall hold for several moments, Jess-ic-ha," the leader told her, indicating the remaining axemen and archers still standing on the slick, lumpy ground thick with dead soldiers.
"How many do we have left?"
The leader glanced across the fort’s three long walls and small keep, "Two hundred and thirty, less. Of the enemy, I guess eight hundred."
"Georgy?"
"I'm thinking."
"Shit." She would have to retreat. Retreat meant losing points. It would be hard to scavenge points after the slaughter out in the field. She caught a glance of the battlefield halfway between the two opposing teams' forts; dirt brown ground marred by red and yellow bodies. She had to remind herself that these soldiers, her demons, were more like robots than true living creatures. She wondered if they enjoyed the whole experience, fighting and dying, or if they were emotionless. "The cavalry, where are they?"
"Behind the keep, as ordered," the lead shield-bearer said. Blood loss from the arm was starting to slow him down.
"Georgy, unless you can give me something, I'll have to try another feint or just barricade ourselves inside the keep. Maybe we can throw that hot oil on them, slow them down a bit."
"Haha, let's not do another feint please?" Peter said from the other side of the keep. After the slaughter out on the field, he had spent most of his time hiding the cavalry, complaining as he did so. He'd had enough time to sit down with a snack and light the keep's fireplace.
Jessica marvelled at the authenticity of the games. Someone had been thoughtful enough to add edible fruit trees on the outskirts of the battlefield. They must have been specially prepared just for the human palate.
"Shut up, Peter; go sit by that stupid fireplace. Georgy?"
; "Maybe, it's something..." A four-armed yellow warrior leapt onto one of her shield-bearers and bit down on his head while holding the demon’s arms at bay. Her shield-bearer shook his head back and forth, ripping chunks of the enemy soldier's mouth and teeth away with the horns on his head. It let go of his head but held onto his axe and shield. The shield-bearer let go of his axe and swiped forward with the freed hand, gouging a large chunk of yellow flesh from the enemy's throat. By the time the shield-bearer had thrown the new carcass off him, he'd lost half his face. He shrugged at the damage and picked up the axe he had dropped.
"Well what is it? I'm running out of options down here."
"You're not going to like it. I'm paraphrasing from these rules; this section is a hundred pages long, but I think what it's saying is if one of the team members wants to enter the match and fight, they can. The only problem is, of course, that the game's safeties will be deactivated."
"What?" Jessica said as a spear flew over her head. “You mean I could be killed?”
"Yes, looks like it. You'd also be worth a lot of points to the enemy if you died, but even more if you are captured, so they won’t want to kill you. It’s pretty much an automatic win if you’re captured. No one does it because it’s too risky; you gain nothing from entering the match."
"Okay, got it!" she yelled back.
"Got what?" Peter said.
"How many horsemen do we have?" Jessica asked Peter.
"Eighty-eight are left. Why?"
"Good, have half of them dismount and defend the keep from the inside. Guards," she said to her shield-bearers, "I need as many troops as possible to come with me, we're going to break out of the fort. Pull everyone you can back from the walls, whoever can't reach me, try to get to the keep."
"Ah..." Georgy started to say, "I hope you're not doing what—"
"Find a weak spot in their attack, Georgy. Now, how do I enter the game?"
"Sweet balls, you're going to do it, mad woman! A hundred paces to your right, the Yellows have abandoned their ladders there. Girl I hope you can run."
Wargames of the Everworld Page 2
