by Lance Berry
“Just tell us what the hell is going on, Theo!”
“You wanna know what’s going on? Tell ‘em, Chen! Tell ‘em what I found out about you. Tell ‘em who you really are, you son of a bitch!”
Now all eyes turned expectantly to Anthony Chen, who huffed angrily. He stepped away from the group slightly and turned partly away, almost as if he were unable to face them. The silence stretched out, and Theo took advantage, pointing to the com-screen. “Ever since I met this cocksucker, I just knew there was something about him. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. So I did an Overnet search. It took a long time, but I finally came up with something on this slope–“
Danielle was on Theo in an instant, and slapped his face so hard that he actually lost balance for a second. “Shut the hell up with that! Don’t you dare use that word again!”
Theo was startled and angered, to say the least. He rubbed the spot where she slapped him, but it stung too much, so he stopped. His eyes were filled with tears of anger, and he glared down at her but said nothing. Instead, he looked at Chen. “Go on, ‘Chen’. Once you tell them, they’ll have no reason to be angry at me for calling a spade a spade.”
Chen slid his eyes sideways at him, anger smoldering beneath his usually placid surface. He turned to his fellows and let out a long, slow sigh of defeat before speaking. “My name is not Chen. It’s actually Chang. My grandfather was Jing Tsao Chang.”
With the exception of Theo, the jaws of Travis and the others dropped to the floor. “Holy mad-ass shit,” Francis said aloud, and the others could only stare at Anthony Chang in silent astonishment.
During the early stages of the war with the Calvorian Alliance, there was a brief period where enemy forces had pressed in tightly above Earth. In the course of battle between the two sides, an immense portion of Asia was devastated by fallout from low atmospheric conflict between DFCs and Skimmers, along with orbital bombardments from Calvorian battlecruisers. At least two thirds of the Great Wall of China was destroyed, and hundreds of thousands in the Pacific Rim were either killed or injured. In an attempt to save the peoples and culture of Asia, General Jing Tsao Chang of the People’s Republic of China organized a push into Africa–the nearest continent large enough to possibly support an influx of so many people. At first, the African Autocracy greeted the Chinese with open arms. But as more and more entered, space quickly became limited.
When the A.A. attempted to seal its borders, other Asian principalities (many of them forced into participating at their governments’ whim) sided with Chang, who ultimately chose to use force to allow more of his people to enter. This initiated the start of what came to be known as the Asian- Zulu War, which lasted eight years, and in the end left well over sixty thousand dead between both sides. The war was ended only by the delayed intervention of United Earth Force, which was still fairly new in its own formation, and thus slow in policy making. UEF sealed the African borders, yet allowed those invaders who had already penetrated and entrenched themselves to stay. As a conciliatory effort toward the African Autocracy, General Chang was brought up on war crimes charges and executed in a public broadcast, but the final seam in history’s tapestry was woven, and the PanAsian Provinces were thus formed.
“I had no idea General Chang had any living relatives,” Francis finally spoke up, breaking the silence.
“No one was supposed to know,” Anthony Chang said, casting a hard glare at Theo. “I’ve spent my life trying to make up for the deeds of my grandfather…I never believed in any of his principles. I wanted a new life, far from where I was known, and thought that I could start over here. The recruitment board agreed.”
“They knew you were Chang’s grandson?” Travis asked, amazed at the possibility.
“Of course they knew,” Chang replied. “They know everything they want to know about you when you join…everything they need to know. Hell, they probably know everything from my shoe size to how many inches I am.”
Theo sneered. “Bet you could a wear a pinky ring on it too, huh?”
Chang shot forward to take a swipe at Theo. But he swung too wide, and went off balance. Theo took full advantage and hit him so hard that blood spattered out of his bottom lip and he fell back onto the bed. But as Theo moved in with another blow on the way, Travis interposed himself, throwing his arm up to deflect it away from Chang. Theo looked at him in surprise. “Get out of my way, Rand.”
“Hell, no!”
With a guttural snarl, Theo threw a punch at Travis who, to his own surprise, easily deflected it. He said a silent thanks to Sensei Ling, as Theo took another swing, and he blocked that just as easily. Theo took a halfstep back, sizing him up. “Oh, it’s like that, huh? Alright, buddy-boy, it’s on!”
And all of a sudden, the two were locked into close-quarters combat, as Theo put Travis on the defensive. The taller boy would throw blow after punch, yet Travis would parry and block. Theo threw in a kick for good measure, which Travis managed to duck–and if it weren’t for Danielle’s own good reflexes, Theo’s long leg would have clipped her in the chin.
The two moved around the extremely small quarters, each looking for an opening as, caught up in the sudden frenzy, the others had unconsciously given in to mob mentality, cheering on Travis for a sure victory.
Then, the door behind them slammed loudly. All turned, fearful that it might be Colonel Wentwell, but it was Tony Drake standing in front of the closed door instead. “What the hell’s going on here?” he shouted in surprise. “I could hear you guys from two flights down! Luckily, hardly anybody’s around because of free time–which is almost over,” he said pointedly as he looked at Danielle. All were silent a moment, then Francis clapped Chang on the shoulder. “C’mon, Tony…let’s get outta here.” Chang pointed to the scattered and crunched books and dsp’s on the floor, but Travis waved him off. “I’ll get it,” he offered. Chang nodded gratefully, and he and Francis left the room.
“What is going on?” Drake asked Danielle this time. She hooked her arm around his and led him to the door. “I’ll explain on the way.” Drake glanced back at Travis and Theo in confusion as she led him away.
Travis and Theo stood alone in the room, silent. Staring at each other. Finally, Travis turned away from him and began picking up the books and dsp’s they had unwittingly stepped on as they sparred. “I thought we had an understanding, Travis,” Theo said at last.
Travis stopped picking up the materials and fixed him in a hard stare. “We do have an understanding: you’re a racist asshole. And I’d suggest you get your head on straight, unless you want to take the time to try and explain what happened here to Wentwell.”
Theo said nothing. He left, slamming the door behind him. Travis finished cleaning up the materials and placed them in two piles on a desk as neatly as he could manage. As he finished stacking the items, he saw Theo walking across the quad, and a sudden chill shot up his spine, making him shudder. He wasn’t afraid of Theo in the slightest, but somehow, he had a feeling in his gut that all of this would end very badly.
Dear Travis;
Hi!!! I haven’t heard from you in a while, so I figured I’d write and see how you’re doing. Things are going okay here, my Mom and Dad’s doing fine. How’s your dad doing? It was all over the news, about the return of the Samurai’s survivors. I know you and your father have never been too close, but maybe now’s the best time to reconcile, and get over the past.
I miss you very much. I wish you would e-me or vid more often. I hope everything’s okay between us? I’ve been going out a lot after school, hanging out with friends. Guys keep hitting on me, but I tell them I have a boyfriend (at least I hope I still have). You’ve always been different from other guys, Travis…I hope that hasn’t changed. I hope to hear from you soon. I miss you. I love you.
–Gilda
Overnet Address: GMR@CY736-op2_81H
Travis felt very bad about not having contacted Gilda in so long, but he had been very busy with his studies. With Hugo Go
mez’ help, he had been able to catch up with the rest of his DFC flight class. Now he was able to not only leave the virtual hangar bay without crashing or killing anyone, but he was also able to adequately change his course directions to find specific homing points on his onboard computer. He went online whenever possible to use a virtual simulator, so that he would be ready when the time came to begin targeting objects and jumping to light speed. He was beginning to move to the front of the class in the study and practice of Jeet Kune Do, and Sensei Ling said that it was rare that he had any student pick up on the martial art so quickly. He had also done very well in Drill Sergeant Macavee’s Armaments Class, becoming quite a skilled shooter with the VK-10 Blastrifle and Zuk-Lar .20 pistol. Travis found he could pick off targets almost two hundred yards away with the VK-10, and that was without the sight. In fact, he had been looking forward to today’s class, ever since he had heard what the drill was going to be.
Macavee had taken his class to a large, open-air training field just past Paddington Court. The field contained large dirt slopes which rose up and down at irregular intervals–some spaced close together, some wide. Twenty foot tall sentry towers stood at certain points between the slopes, each one armed with taser cannons. Since no military weapon had a “stun” setting, taser cannons were designed exclusively for training scenarios such as this.
“Listen very carefully, Cadets,” Macavee said, striding up and down the line of students as he spoke. “Those taser cannons are set to pivot and fire at any moving object on that slalom. Your body armor will protect you from being permanently harmed, but trust me, your teeth are going to rattle something fierce as you jump around like a milkshake being blended, and fall to the ground. There are also hidden launchers at certain spots, which will alternately fire plasma grenades and concussion charges. The concussion charges are designed to strike the ground around you, simulating a small explosion and mainly toss up dirt to obscure your vision. The plasma grenades are designed to discombobulate your synaptic pathways, rendering you one hundred percent useless for ten minutes. Your objective is to race to the very end, trying to not get hit, while also taking out as many sentry towers as you can. Your Blastrifles won’t damage the sentry guns, but striking one will render it inactive for fifteen seconds. As you reach the end of the course, a meter at the far end will register who comes in, from first to last. So that you don’t all get picked off at once, I will be sending you out at three second intervals, from the left of this group to the right.”
Macavee then moved to the cadet farthest left of him, at the end of the line. “Check your armor, ready your blaster.” The cadet did as he was told, an apprehensive look on his face as he made sure all his body plating was in place and his safety on his Blastrifle was set to “off”.
Macavee nodded curtly. “On my mark–GO!”
All watched as the cadet raced off. The instant he set foot on the first leg of the course, the first sentry gun swiveled around, firing taser bolts. The cadet jumped forward, barely managing to dodge it, and fell chest-first on the ground. He almost lost his grip on his Blastrifle, but managed to snatch onto its butt, dragging it up with him as he jumped to his feet and set off once more. Some of the cadets left behind jumped as, with a sudden, sharp whistle of rushing air, a concussion charge hit the ground to his right. A large cloud of dirt and soot blasted upward, and for a moment they lost sight of him as he ran straight into the earthy mist.
He reappeared a few seconds later on the other side, and the cadets all cheered. The cadet disappeared over a small rise, and with the sound of ionizing air, several laser bolts appeared from behind the rise, each one just missing the next sentry tower. The cadet appeared once more, giving up on firing…content instead to just run for his life.
“Armor check, blaster check–GO!” Macavee shouted, and the next startled cadet took off. She wasted no time, and just as her foot touched the first leg, she fired at the primary sentry, scoring a direct hit. With a whine, the gun turret lowered, making no movement to aim at her further. The cadets cheered her on, shouting her name happily.
“Armor check, blaster check–GO!”
And off went Anthony Chang, now the most famous student at the school. The same day Theo discovered who Anthony was, he naturally blabbed about it to half the campus, and those students suddenly in the know spread the word to the other half. Travis was certain that Theo must have been brokenhearted when no active backlash against Anthony was forthcoming from any other student. There were fervent whispers, stares and some pointing, of course–Anthony’s grandfather was infamous, and now that Travis knew who Anthony was, he finally realized that the young man was almost the spitting image of Jing Tsao. But the majority of students were very open-minded, and there was no outward sense of ostracism that Travis could see, or which Chang had mentioned, at least. He was simply one more student, like Travis or Drake, who had a wellknown relative.
And now Anthony Chang moved swiftly across the obstacle course, doing his best to dodge concussion charge explosions, plasma grenades and tasers while firing at the sentry towers. Travis was impressed; Chang was doing a damn good job of picking off the sentries, and was almost closing in on the previous cadet. Travis glanced at Theo, who stared at Chang neutrally. If he was also impressed by their roommate’s performance, he refused to show it.
Pietro was next, and he took off like a shot. The primary sentry tower, which had been disarmed by the cadet before Chang, probably had about five or six seconds left in its deactivation cycle before it would spring to life once more, and Pietro was determined to make the most of it. He ran in a somewhat zigzag pattern, trying to outsmart the launchers’ sensor array, and fired at the active sentries as he went. This course didn’t seem to be as hard as Macavee made it out to be, and Travis felt his confidence rising.
Theo was next. He raced away from the group as fast as he could, and even as the primary sentry activated, the turret rising to seek him out, he fired and scored a direct hit, deactivating it once more. Travis couldn’t help it–he cheered right along with the rest of the cadets as Theo made his way after the others.
A shout from Macavee, and it was Travis’ turn. He checked his breast plate, arm gauntlets, knee shields and boots. His Blastrifle’s safety was clicked to “off”, and he raced across the field. He passed the first sentry, which was still inactive from Theo’s blast. He glanced to his left, and saw the taser cannon charging, firing–and he jumped forward just in time to avoid being shocked to near-unconsciousness. Luckily, he managed to hold onto his Blastrifle, and scrambled to his feet. It wasn’t until that moment, caught up as he had been in the excitement of watching his fellow cadets perform on the faux battlefield, that he realized how hard it was to hear anything, to pick out specific sounds. With the launchers firing, the sentries attempting to pick off the cadets, and the concussion charges going off, it was almost impossible to figure out which sounds were coming from where, or to focus on anything but the road ahead. He suddenly realized the entire purpose of the exercise: not only to practice avoiding getting hit or to pick off targets, but to learn to focus, to discern which sounds might be the most important, because on a deafening battlefield, the sense of hearing might at any moment be more important than sight itself. He nodded assuredly to himself and moved forward, but a concussion charge landed right in front of him, blowing up a column of dirt and smoke!
He stumbled, falling onto his back. He jumped to his feet, and heard the charging hum of the primary sentry activating again…for an instant, as the sentry pivoted in his direction, he froze–!
Nothing happened.
Travis stood there, rooted in place, unsure what was happening. The sentry gun was pointed directly at him, its muzzle had him dead to rights, but it didn’t fire. He blinked, and in an instant, Macavee’s words came back to him:
Those taser cannons are set to pivot and fire at any moving object on that slalom.
Travis tried not to sweat; the dirt had parched his lips, but he refused to
lick them. He remained frozen dead in place, staring at the sentry, and it seemed for all the world as if the muzzle was staring back at him, trying to win the silent contest of wills between them. Travis’ eyes slid sideways. He could see the first cadet in the distance, about six inclines away, shuddering on the ground where he had fallen from a taser hit. The female who had followed him was nowhere to be seen, nor were any of the others that had come after her. Travis could hear the cadets behind him calling out his name, and he knew that another cadet would be coming up behind him soon. He had to do something, he couldn’t remain in place all day–!
With a sharp intake of air, Travis raised his gun and leaped to the left, back down the incline, firing as he did so. The cannon’s smart ware didn’t expect that action, and pivoted just a second too late. His laser struck it, and just as the device turned to fire at him, it shut down with a whine. A self-satisfied smile spread across his face as he heard the cheers of his classmates behind him. Not wanting to get caught up too much in the moment, he forced the smile off his face and jumped to his feet, running back up the incline.
He raced away from the cheering crowd, up and over the incline, firing at the next sentry tower as he crested the hill. It deactivated and he pressed forward, occasionally swinging his head left and right, thinking that maybe he might be able to spot Macavee’s hidden launchers; hoping that he could possibly run faster than the machines’ sensors could target him. He passed Pietro, who was lying on the ground, his eyes staring up uncomprehendingly as his body shuddered from the effects of a fresh plasma grenade hit. Travis tried not to think about him as he moved onward.
He came to the top of the third hill, and froze. There were three more sentries ahead, and now he could see the female cadet at the far end of the course, sitting on the ground and recovering from the race. Travis stood still, surveying the terrain before moving forward, trying to pick out laser fire from explosion from concussion blast.
