“Now.” Lora’s nostrils flared the way they did when she was about to lose her temper. “That’s an order direct from the admiral. Got any problems, take it up with him.”
She pointed to a door at the end of the room.
Kelvin looked to the exit, trying not to gulp. “Care to tell me what this is all about?”
“Even if I knew, I don’t know if I’d want to tell you, but I’m in the dark as much as you on this one.”
Kelvin stared at her for a minute, not sure whether she was telling the truth…then again, Lora had too big a stick up her ass to lie.
His shoulders sagged. He’d hoped to at least spend some time basking in the glory before the Admiral spoiled things.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Lora said, noticing his consternation, “whatever it is, it couldn’t be that bad.” She looked away in an effort not to appear as if she cared too much.
“It doesn’t make me feel any better,” Kelvin grumbled. He gave the cute cadet girl one final glance and sighed. “But thanks all the same.” He attempted a smile, his lips feeling much heavier than before. “At least I’ve got my medal and the prize money to look forward to.”
“Well, you are the champion,” she said with a smile of her own as she stepped out of his way, gesturing to the door again.
Kelvin straightened his back and followed Lora to the end of the room, the claps and cheers a dull din behind a wall of worry. What should have been a walk of glory felt more like a death march.
They stepped into a hallway, the door snapping shut behind them, cutting the sounds off completely.
“Bastards will just have to party without me for the time being,” he moaned.
“This way. The admiral doesn’t like to be kept waiting and whatever it is sounded urgent. I have something to show you on the way.” She pulled a hollopad from under her arm.
“Don’t you go anywhere without that damn thing?”
“Never.”
“I don’t think now is the right time for a lesson, all things considered,” he objected.
Ignoring him, she pressed a button and a hologram coalesced into two Weiser T-class fighters before them. “Not a lesson. Check this out.”
“Fine,” he muttered, trying not to sound like a sulking child and failing.
“Play clip and zoom out two-hundred percent.”
The ships shrank as the recording played.
As Kelvin’s T-class slowed, Boyd’s fighter opened fire. Kelvin’s ship dodged the attack just as he remembered.
Lora stopped the hologram. “Did you see that?”
“I slowed. He fired. I evaded. What’s to see?”
“Watch again. I’ll slow it down this time. Keep an eye on Lieutenant Boyd’s ship.”
“Replay,” Lora commanded.
The clip played out as before and Lora stopped it again.
She looked at Kelvin.
Kelvin shrugged.
“How can you be so blind? Right before Lieutenant Boyd opened fire, he already started banking to the right.” She looked at Kelvin as though a parent would a child who couldn’t understand something basic.
Kelvin stared at her, waiting for an explanation.
Lora rubbed her hand through her hair the way she did when she got frustrated. “Lieutenant could have won right there and then, Kelvin. But he missed on purpose.”
Kelvin cocked an eyebrow. “Don’t be silly, Lora. He clearly made a bad call. And that bad call cost him the game. He didn’t even have a lock on me.”
“If you’d watched his game footage as I’d instructed, you would know that he prefers to fire manually.”
“And that’s why he missed.”
“His hit rate is ninety-one percent.”
“Without a lock?”
Lora nodded. “He missed on purpose.”
“I don’t think so. Someone has fixed those numbers. My accuracy rating is ninety-three percent with a lock. Coming close to those kinds of stats with manual handling is impossible. Are you really that upset that I didn’t listen to you?”
Lora’s eyes went wide. “Don’t be ridiculous. This isn’t about me. And it isn’t about you either. That stunt you pulled was stupid and almost cost us the game. The point is Lieutenant Boyd could have taken you out of the game and he didn’t. And I’d like to know why.”
“Sounds like sour grapes to me.” He couldn’t believe that Lora was trying to steal his thunder after becoming the new Delta Games champion. She’d always had a stick up her ass, but this was taking things to a whole new level. “Is it really that hard to handle that I won the game by not listening to you?”
“What?” She stuttered, lost for words.
Kelvin reveled in her confusion. “We’re supposed to be a team, yet you’ve worked against me every step of the way. One might even suspect that you’re working for Starship Discovery.”
Lora stopped in her tracks. “You insufferable fool.” She tucked the hollopad under her arm again. “Maybe one day you’ll figure out that the galaxy doesn’t revolve around that giant head of yours.”
She turned on her heel and walked back the way they’d come.
“Hey, where are you going? You can’t leave me to go in there on my own.”
“You just said you didn’t need me,” she said without turning.
“Come one, Lora. That’s not what I meant.”
She turned a corner and vanished from view, leaving Kelvin standing in the corridor by himself. Suddenly feeling very alone, he eyed the admiral’s office door no more than a dozen steps away.
“So much for being a team,” he muttered as he walked the rest of the way.
He drew a deep breath and held his hand against the print reader. “Lieutenant Kelvin Terrence.”
“You may enter,” a female’s voice announced.
The door slid open, the room a monster ready to swallow him.
Kelvin’s breath caught in his throat.
As expected, Admiral Dyson sat behind a large desk, cold eyes peering at the entrance. However, several other Delta Fleet officers stood to either side of the grim, old man.
When officers reached a certain station, their faces seemed to set in stone. The admiral was no exception.
“Sit.” Admiral Dyson extended his hand toward a chair in the middle of the room.
Kelvin couldn’t help but feel he’d walked into an interrogation. “Admiral…” Kelvin nodded as he sank into the hard chair.
“Do you know why you’re here Kelvin?”
Kelvin scanned those gathered. Cold eyes and chiseled faces regarded him with something approaching disgust. “Afraid not, sir. Lora wouldn’t—”
“Major Goff was ordered to send you here. She didn’t know why. She’ll have a review of her own to attend soon enough.”
“A review, sir? I don’t understand…”
“Do you take the admiral for a fool?” a steely eyed woman seethed from over the admiral’s shoulder. “How dare you show such disrespect?”
Others mumbled, voicing their disapproval.
“I really don’t know what’s going—”
“Silence,” the silver-haired officer cut him off. “You will only speak when spoken to.”
The other officers jeered in agreement.
Admiral Dyson held up a hand, motioning for quiet.
The room sunk into silence as all eyes fell back on Kelvin.
The admiral held up a gold card and Kelvin couldn’t help but stare.
The twenty-five thousand credits.
“I was looking forward to giving this to you during the celebration ceremony,” he said, slowly shaking his head. “But as it turns out, this prize does not belong to you.”
It took everything Kelvin had not to fall out of his seat. His head began to spin. “What...why?”
“I was hoping you would man up and take responsibility, but I’m more than happy to share the security footage with the rest of the commanding officers.” The admiral gestured to those gathered to e
ither side of him.
“What security footage?”
Admiral Dyson held the controls on his desk. “Officer Greene, send in Ensign Chin.”
“Right away, sire,” a metallic voice responded.
The office doors swished open again and a female walked in…the cute girl with black hair and blue eyes that had caught Kelvin’s attention in the reception room.
Ensign Chin winked at him with a wicked grin before walking to Admiral Dyson’s desk, a data crystal in her outstretched hand.
“The original copy, as requested sir,” she told the admiral in a thick accent Kelvin didn’t recognize.
She offered Kelvin a final smirk as she joined the other officers.
“Not long into your fight with Lieutenant Boyd,” Admiral Dyson said, “Admiral Rex contacted us with disturbing news. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
He slid the crystal into the control panel on his desk.
Kelvin wanted to scream for someone to tell him what was going on, but the steely-eyed senior officer over the admiral’s shoulder beat him down with a warning glare.
“Commander Tassels, perhaps you would activate the display.”
The steely-eyed officer pursed her lips while looking at Kelvin, as though trying not to show just how much she was enjoying the spectacle. “It would be my honor, sir.”
She made a hand gestures and a whirr emitted from behind Kelvin. He turned to find two panels sliding apart to reveal a wall-sized display.
The other officers looked as eager as Kelvin felt confused.
“Is this the evidence you spoke of, sir?” a senior officer asked.
Admiral Dyson merely nodded.
Countless questions boiled over in Kelvin’s head. What evidence? What the hell is going on? Are they testing me? Is Lora in on this? Is it a prank they pull on those who win?
The display lit up and several figures appeared under a Weiler T-class.
The security footage was a little fuzzy, but Kelvin’s jaw fell ajar when he realized who the people were.
“Is that not you and your cadet friends, Lieutenant Terrence?” Admiral Dyson said.
“Yes, but that…what…”
“He has confirmed it is him,” Commander Tassels announced. “He and his friends tampered with Lieutenant Boyd’s fighter before the game.”
“This is grounds for disqualification from the Games,” a senior officer piped up.
“From the Games?” Tassels said as if it was the silliest thing she’d heard all day. “It’s grounds for Dishonorable Discharge.”
The gathered officers murmured and nodded in agreement.
Kelvin could hardly believe his ears. “No…I mean, it looks like me, but it can’t be…I’ve never been on the Starship Discovery and even if I was, I wouldn’t know how to adjust a starfighter’s blueprint.”
Commander Tassels waved her hand and the image zoomed in on a redhead messing around with an access panel.
“What about Major Goff? Would she know how to reconfigure a fighter’s blueprint?”
“Yes…” He cupped his mouth suddenly realizing what he’d implied. “But Major Goff would never—”
“There you have it,” Commander Tassels cut in. “An admission of guilt if ever I heard one.”
“He sounds guilty alright,” another officer added.
Admiral Dyson nodded. “It’s doesn’t look good, Lieutenant Terrence. What do you have to say for yourself?”
All eyes remained on Kelvin, judging, like a pack of ravenous wolves about to pounce on helpless prey. He jumped out of his chair in a rage. “Sir, this is absurd! It has to be a set-up.” He lowered his voice suddenly, realizing how bad it must have looked. “Someone has manipulated that footage. That isn’t me…and Major Goff sure as hell wouldn’t have done anything of the kind.”
“Mind your tongue, boy,” Commander Tassels warned.
“The footage came straight from Admiral Rex,” the cute girl added with glee. “Are you calling him a liar?”
Admiral Dyson raised a hand. “Ensign Chin is right. I spoke with Admiral Rex directly. And we go back decades. I trust his word.”
“I...” Kelvin stumbled, lost for words. “Ask any of Goff’s superiors…She does everything by the book.”
“A full investigation will begin as soon as the resources can be secured,” Commander Tassels said. She turned to the Admiral, her eyes narrowing. “But we need a decision now, sir.”
“Of course,” Admiral Dyson boomed. “We will put it to a vote. Anyone who believes Lieutenant Terrence guilty, based on the available evidence, please raise your right hand.”
All but two senior officers reached for the ceiling.
Kelvin shook his head. He must have hit his head and fallen into a nightmare. Surely, he would wake up any second.
“This isn’t right,” he barked.
Admiral Dyson hammered his desk with a meaty fist and the room fell silent. “Lieutenant Kelvin Terrence, you are disqualified from the Delta Games. Lieutenant Boyd will be named the new champion and will receive the prize by default.” He tapped the gold card on his desk with one finger before pointing at Kelvin. “You will submit your pilot’s license to the board until a formal investigation has been completed.”
It took everything Kelvin had not to march over to the admiral’s desk and beg on his knees. “Don’t I get a fair trial or something?”
“We will iron things out during a formal hearing, of course, but that will take time.”
“Officers Tully and Barnett will escort you to the brig where you will await further questioning,” Commander Tassels said, nodding to two armed guards among the officers.
Kelvin tensed as they approached, arms outstretched.
“This way, sir,” the larger of the two said.
“You can’t be serious…” Kelvin said, the room spinning around his head.
“Serious? You’re lucky we aren’t handing you over to Admiral Rex.”
Admiral Dyson merely watched indifferently as the guards marched Kelvin to the door. He fumbled for something else to say, but it was no good. This pack of wolves had already made up their minds and there was no changing that.
Suddenly he realized who Chin was, the beautiful girl turned into a beast in his eyes. She was the pilot he’d taken out in the semi-finals. He committed her face to memory this time.
I’ll get the bitch back one day. She’ll see. They all will.
His jaw hurt from clenching so hard. He focused on the pain, imagining how much more he would inflict on those involved…when the time came.
5
Fight or Flight
Fox rolled and sprang against a mud wall as a bolt of plasma struck the ground where he’d been crouched less than a second before.
His heart beat hard in his ears as his eyes and nose quickly calculated his options. His hand snapped out and he pulled the blaster’s trigger. Four bolts hammered the Drahk to his right, causing the beast to stumble.
Fox took the opportunity to escape and hastened towards the alleyway.
Two Drahk I can handle, but four is suicide.
He gritted his teeth and ducked as a stream of plasma sailed overhead, smashing mortar from the walls. He covered his eyes as shards of hardened mud rained down around him.
He slung his arms back and returned fire, not looking to see if anything hit.
He raced around a building, cursing himself for being tempted by the illium.
You should have kept your eye on the objective, you stupid bastard.
If he hadn’t been such a fool, he could have had Sasha and been on his merry way.
Now I’m screwed!
Fox sprinted as fast as he could, no longer worried about who he might run into. He emerged in an empty courtyard with pillars supporting the surrounding buildings. He sidled up to a pillar to catch his breath, his tongue hanging out as he panted.
Why didn’t I just grab the damn girl?
Clicks, clac
ks, and heavy boot-falls reverberated in the ally.
His eyes darted around the courtyard, looking for a way out. He could only run so far before they caught up to him.
But how to hide from the beasts in their own nest?
He ran for the next corner and turned back, waiting for the Drahk, figuring he would stand a better chance if he thinned their number.
He aimed his blaster at the alley mouth and waited, his position partially obscured by a pillar.
Two Drahk walked into the courtyard without a worry in the world, for they ushered ragged slaves forward, using them as living shields.
Evil lizard-brains.
He retreated deeper into the alley, looking for a way to higher ground. Finding a low enough terrace, he clutched a handhold and quickly pulled himself onto the raised platform. He climbed through an opening, pushing a netted curtain aside.
As he landed inside, he froze.
Three Drahk dressed in colorful garb stared up at him from their positions around a floor table, the scaled flaps behind their ears flaring outward as they hissed.
He held out his blaster, making sure they could see he was armed. Drahk civilians were no less dangerous than their military. His eyes flicked between their feet and hands, the claws several inches longer than Fox’s.
The smell of cooked flesh filled the sizeable room.
He walked forward, gesturing with his blaster, and the Drahk jumped back, making way.
Passing the table, he caught sight of bones. They appeared to be human, and fairly small.
Sick bastards.
He moved into the open-plan living area and tried the wooden door, all the while keeping his eyes and blaster trained on the hissing Drahk, clicks echoing outside the window.
Locked.
There was no point in trying to get the Drahk to help. At least the door seemed flimsy.
Not wanting to waste his blaster’s battery, he took a step back and rammed the door with his right shoulder, forgetting the injury. A searing pain shot up his neck and down his arm. He stumbled back, shaking his head.
One of the Drahk made a move for him, but he brought the blaster up and bared his fangs before it could get close.
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