by Ivan Kal
A few moments later the first enemy came into view, Adrian followed him with his sight but didn’t fire, he waited a few moments more until two more arrived. When no one else arrived, he aimed his rifle at the last one in their formation, and took him out with a well-placed shot in the chest, immediately he moved his rifle to the next closest and took him out as well, it all happened in less than a second and he then moved to fire at the last one, which had already started moving towards cover, Adrian’s first shot missed, but his second struck him in the lower back. He fell on the ground, and turned firing his rifle blindly, and Adrian finished him with a shot to the chest. He then jumped down from his hiding spot and started running back towards his team starting point.
His retreat was unfortunately interrupted by someone opening fire on his back, the first shot missed but the next hit him in the leg, and he went down, he rolled over and tried to aim in the general direction of his attacker but another shot found his right shoulder, and pain spread through his arm, the suit freezing its movement, a moment later another shot found his chest and he was completely frozen in his suit.
“Match over. Team Viper victory.” A voice rang out inside the arena, a minute later Adrian’s suit unfroze. He got back on his feet and went back to the changing room.
He was first to arrive as he was the closest to their changing room, a minute later the others started to arrive, Adrian was already out of his suit and was sitting on one of the benches when others entered. They removed their helmets, and Adrian noticed their somber expressions, they were all accustomed to wining, they took the top scores in other challenges and believed that team vs. team would be no different. They took off their suits, changed into their regular uniforms and started leaving the room to go back to their team room. When Bethany started for the doors Adrian got up and grabbed her hand. She turned angrily to him and started to say something but the look on Adrian’s face stopped her. The rest of had left the room with Noah being the last, he noticed them staying back.
“Adrian? You com-” He started before Adrian interrupted him by closing the door. He took a deep breath and turned towards Bethany who stood in the center of the room, her hands crossed over her chest.
“What is your problem?” Adrian asked, trying to keep his voice controlled.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. It was a good plan, they ju-”
“I’m not talking about the stupid match!” Adrian yelled interrupting her, he started to get agitated, his breathing picking up speed, he managed to bring himself under control in the silence that followed his outburst. When he had enough control he meet Bethany’s startled eyes and stepped closer to her.
“I’m talking about this thing you have against me.” He said.
She opened her mouth then closed it.
“I have nothing against you.” She said slowly.
“Don’t. We both know that there is something, this feud between us is only hurting our team, and our chances at graduating. So why don’t you just tell me what it is, and maybe we can try to work it out.” Adrian said.
Bethany just looked at Adrian silently, but he could see her holding back something.
“Bethany. Please, just tell me. I have spent days trying to remember if had ever done something to make you dislike me.” Adrian said pleadingly, he was growing tired of the tension between them.
Bethany’s face scrounged up in grimace.
“It’s nothing you have done. It’s me.” She said angrily. Adrian was taken aback with the vehemence of her response.
“What do you mean it’s you?” He asked confused.
Bethany sighed, the anger going out of her, she sat down on one of the benches.
“I was jealous, at first, and I hated you. You must understand, I have trained and studied for this my whole life. I always wanted to be a soldier, since I was a small girl, I would look at my father and later my brother, they were my heroes, and I wanted to be just like them.” She said, Adrian knew that both her father and her brother were in Olympus military. “I would train day in and day out for the single purpose of being the best, I wanted to make my family proud. After I graduated elementary I went to the military school. And there all my hard work paid off, I was the best, and my training led to me being invited to join the fleet, something that was new, were I could leave my own mark. I was so proud of myself, as were my father and brother, I learned that only the best were invited to join the fleet, and everyone else I met was the elite, and I was the best even among them. And then I met you, an 18 year old kid. Someone who was so good that they recruited you before you even went to specialization school. At first I thought that you were being favored, but quickly I realized that you were just that good. So I made it my mission to be better. But then I realized that I wasn’t better, so I tried to alienate you from the others, I didn’t even realize what I was doing, it all just happened. And then when we came here, and you told me off, it was like a fog lifted of my mind and I saw how I treated you.” She said with a sad look on her face. “Then I hated myself, I tried to apologize, but didn’t feel like it was enough. I was embarrassed and didn’t know how to talk to you after that, I was uncomfortable around you, and I didn’t want to lose my pride, so I tried to limit our interactions, it just became easier than talking to you.” She finished softly. Adrian looked at the ceiling. “How much easier this all would have been if we only talked to one another.”
“That is one thing I will never understand about humans, how can beings so reliant on communications with others of their kind, be so deaf and ignorant of one another.” Iris said.
“I don’t know.”
“What?” Bethany said softly. Adrian looked at her and realized that he answered Iris out loud. He went on his knees in front of Bethany and took one of her hands in both of his. He smiled awkwardly.
“We are such idiots, you and I.” He said.
Bethany looked at him funny but didn’t respond.
“If only we talked sooner we could have put this behind us a long time ago. There is no need for you to feel inferior to me, or to be embarrassed, it was my fault as well, I was too scared to talk to others at the Academy, I didn’t even know how. I am not like you and the others, my age isolated me from the rest of you. And I didn’t make any attempt to bridge the gap between us.” Adrian said.
Finally, she released a nervous laugh. “Yes, we certainly are alike in that manner.” Bethany said.
“You don’t need to avoid me, or to blame yourself for what happened before.” Adrian said, he smiled and stood up, he still held Bethany’s hand, so he pulled her to her feet. Adrian looked her in the eyes and said.
“Are we good now?” Adrian asked.
Bethany let out a relived sigh and nodded. “And I am truly sorry for the way I treated you in the Academy.”
“It’s forgotten.” Adrian said.
“Thank you.” She said relived.
They shared another moment, and then Adrian started towards their room with Bethany walking beside him. When they entered the room their teammates looked at them and released a collective sigh of relief. Bethany and Adrian looked at each other, then at them, and said simultaneously.
“What?”
They all looked at each other and Sakura responded.
“We thought that you killed each other.” She said dead pan serious, Adrian tried to keep his face straight and not reveal his amusement, which was fuelled even more by the fact that they could have killed each other. He kept a straight face and put a hand on Bethany’s lower back pulling her closer to him.
“Why would we kill each other? We are best buds.” He said in a bewildered voice.
Bethany caught on to his ploy, and put left hand on his shoulder, then she turned and leaned into Adrian putting her right on his chest.
“Yes, why would we kill each other?” She said softly. The startled looks on their teammates’ faces were too much for Bethany and Adrian and they burst out laughing. Adrian laughed so hard that he had t
o lean on the wall holding his stomach with his hands, and Bethany wasn’t much better off, she was laughing so hard her eyes started to tear up. The rest of the room joined them after a moment of stunned silence.
After they managed to get themselves under control Tania looked at Bethany and Adrian.
“You two almost had me there, for a moment I thought that all that tension between you was an act. So what happened?” Tania asked.
“We worked some stuff out.” Bethany said.
“Well I am happy that you finally straightened things out, but we still lost the match.” Alexander said.
“Yes.” Bethany said somber, it was her tactics that led to their defeat.
“The tactic was solid.” Adrian said, getting the attention of everyone in the room. “It’s just that we forgot something.”
“What?” Sakura asked.
Adrian looked over the others, making a brief eye contact with Bethany.
“The other teams had been fighting amongst themselves in these matches from the beginning, while we chose to focus on only one type at the time. They have much more experience, and if we want to beat them, we will need to improve quickly, and change our game.”
Part Three – The Divide
Chapter Seventeen
January 2103
Tomas Klein sat in his new Office aboard the Mars station, he had moved his headquarters from Cloud station in Earth’s orbit to Mars, as it was becoming increasingly more difficult to hide his moves in the vicinity of Earth, ever since the Earth’s major players started increasing their presence on the Moon. About half of Olympus population was living on the Moon, mostly families, the other half was spread out on Mars, and on the stations they had inside the system, they had very little people living on the Earth, besides those who worked there, Tomas had slowly transferred all of his people to space, leaving the underwater cities to Concordis, all save for Sedna. He still had some employees working on Earth but their families now lived in space. Earth economy was still dependent on things that Olympus produced, he tried to lessen that somewhat by giving them some of their facilities, it was still not enough, he had hoped that the countries of Earth would unite and start exploiting the resources of the Solar system, but they were unwilling, content to leech of Olympus, while expanding their military influence in space, that was one of the reasons why he didn’t share Olympus tech with them, they were not ready yet. Tomas managed to keep most of his actions secret from the Earth governments, he kept the true number of his ships under wraps, and Earth believed that he had somewhere around 20 transport and mining ships, but they weren’t sure, as Tomas kept moving them outside of their area of influence. In truth Olympus had around a 100 ships, most delegated to work inside the asteroid belt, not counting several stations, two in deep space outside of any planets orbit, and four shipyards/space stations that were spread out in the solar system. The secret to their rapid expansion and unprecedented building capabilities was the fabricator technology. With it they managed increase their manufacturing speeds by more than 500%, while the powers of Earth still relied on manual labor, and their industrial assembling lines. Tomas knew that the word of his fabricator technology got out and that Earth knew about it, but they had no way of getting it. Tomas kept the technology heavily guarded, and had moved all his fabricators outside of Earth influence. Tomas has kept a lot of Olympus technology out of the hands of Earth governments, and while he wanted to see all of humanity advance together, he knew that the governments of Earth wouldn’t allow it, any technology they acquired was tightly controlled and used for their individual progress, rather than the progress and improvement of everyone’s lives. They were still too set in the old rivalries, still remembered old wars, and while they did make progress, The League and Concordis being a part of it, it was still not enough. He knew that there was still corruption, and an enormous gap between those in power and those bellow them. So Tomas kept it all out of their hands, some could say that he was doing the same thing those on Earth would, but Olympus wasn’t like them, there was no division by class in Olympus, everyone was equal in opportunity. Everyone was able to choose their own path, all for free, the only thing Tomas asked in return was that they use their freedom to better the lives of those in Olympus. So while on the surface it seemed that Tomas was doing the exact same thing the corrupt politicians of Earth would do, the difference was in motivation, they would do it for their greed, while Tomas for the good of all. He hoped that he would live long enough to see the day when Earth finally unites under one banner, he didn’t need it to be him, anyone worthy would do. Tomas only feared that it would never happen. He looked at the report that floated above his table. The report held the latest news regarding the Concordis, Coalition, and Leagues warships, for the past few years they were building warships, and increasing their shipbuilding capabilities with more construction post in Earth’s orbit. His shipyards were now orbiting Jupiter, with only one orbiting Mars. Olympus also now had 8 warships, they didn’t have a need for any more, even the decision to build those ships was badly received by his advisors, and were only built because Tomas feared that Earth would turn to force to acquire Olympus tech. Now his fears didn’t feel at all foolish. Concordis had 3 warships, currently in orbit above Europe, League had 4 orbiting above Australia, and the Coalition had just finished building their second ship, with more planed, there was no need for them to have warships, there was no threat to their territory from space, unless they knew about Olympus ships, which was unlikely, as they never went anywhere near Earth. There were of course tensions between the three Earth powers like there always were, so Tomas assumed that they wanted to have their space interest covered. Both the League and Concordis had built colonies on the moon in the last year, they were small by Olympus standard, but monumental for those involved. But overall their space operations paled in comparison to Olympus, not just in technology but also in scope, all three combined barely had half the number of ships that Olympus had. They had limited mining operations on the moon, and none in the belt. They relied on Olympus for raw materials, which Tomas gladly provided, he didn’t want to impair their progress no matter what it looked like to them, he wanted them to catch up to Olympus, to became Olympus’s equals.
Tomas sighed and closed down the report, there was nothing he could do about them arming themselves, that was one of the reasons why he didn’t want to share their technology with them, he knew what they would do with it. He opened up the next report, this one from Professor Hyeon Seo-yun. It informed him that their first interstellar trip was a success, the exploration ship Star Gazer has arrived from its trip to the Alpha Centauri system, the system closest to us. It started its journey more than a year ago, with their version of the alien hyperdrive they were able to travel at ten times the speed of light, making the 4.3 light years trip in just over five months, they spent another month there collecting data and looking around the system and then spent another five months back, it’s now traveling at sub light speed from the edge of our solar system, the edge being the place where Sun’s influence was low enough for a ship to enter hyperspace, which was a few light hours past Pluto, it will take it a few months more to travel back to Mars. The drives worked perfectly even on a trip that long, as did the stasis pods the crew used while in hyperspace, just as Seo-yun assured him they will, but Tomas was still a bit skeptical, he wanted to wait a bit more before they undertook such a long trip, but Seo-yun insisted that there was no need, that they understood the technology and had everything under control, Tomas chose to defer to her judgment and gave her the permission. The report contained a mountain of scientific information that Tomas didn’t understand, sensor readings, readings from the planet orbiting one of the suns in the system and others, he scrolled down until he found Seo-yun’s translation of the data, she tended to leave Tomas notes on the more scientific reports she sent him, he insisted that he get any report on matters she deemed important. Her notes told him that while this was a giant leap and a momentous even
t in human history, the system itself wasn’t impressive, there was nothing there of interest to them, the one planet was unremarkable, nothing more than a rock, with no or very little materials that they used, she didn’t recommend colonization of that system. There were talks between Tomas and his “council” on colonization of other star systems, they all agreed that if they started colonization they would start with a planet with more hospitable conditions, preferably an Earth like world, but based on the map recovered from the Alien ship, those planets were so far away that it would take them decades to get there from the Solar system. For now they would stay in their birth system.
Just as he finished the report, his second, Nadia pinged him and informed him that Seo-yun wanted to speak to him, he told her to send her in.
A moment later Seo-yun walked in, she had her hair tied in a knot on top of her head, and was holding a datapad in her hand, it was amusing to Tomas how most of those who were born before the age of implants had tendency to review information on their datapads rather than their implants.
“Hello Seo-yun, I have just finished reading your report on the Alpha Centauri mission.” Tomas said.
“Hi, well, I have something even more exciting to show you now.” She sat down on the chair in front of his desk, they had abandoned any formality between them a long time ago. She smiled brightly, with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Tomas raised an eyebrow. “More monumental than a trip to another star system?”
“Oh yes, much more.” She said.
Intrigued, Tomas motioned for her to continue.
“I have two things to tell you, I waited until we were sure about both of them, it was coincidence that the final test results came within a day of each other.” She said. Tomas knew that Seo-yun had a lot of experiments going on, and that she didn’t bring them to him until they were successful. He kept silent and waited for her to tell him more.
