Both had been right next to me when the lights went out. I swiveled in a full circle. They had vanished.
I’d seen places like this before, in the Hub, deep in the Pleasure Market, a world hidden by VR tech. Kids learned what was real and what was not the hard way.
This VR was better. Much better. I had to concentrate on seeing the edges.
Clementine consisted of dirt, gravel, and rock. This environment was lush and green and alive.
Back in the Hub, flora grew from the overhead supports. The green below and surrounding me flipped me on my head. I felt like I was walking on the ceiling.
My senses lied to me, and I closed my eyes to get my bearings.
I had to pull myself together. My ordinary sense of calm spread over me like lubricant on a spaceship’s transaxle. I opened my eyes.
Still green. Everywhere. But the world stopped spinning.
I took a step, and the ground gave way. I teetered on the rubbery flooring.
Dense vegetation surrounded me. I marched toward where my friends had been only seconds before.
Long, emerald fronds sliced my exposed skin like a hundred razor-
sharp blades. I jerked back, and my arm grazed another plant that had no effect. My suit shielded me.
Heat blasted from above as if Sol moved a few light-years closer to the Academy. Sweat coated my forehead, and the bright light nearly blinded me. I was used to the deluded glow of the Hub and the internal lights of the station. This was painful.
“Am! Vega!” I pushed closer to where Amelie had been using my uniform-covered forearms to keep the slicing vegetation away. Footsteps shuffling against hard ground cover warned me that someone was approaching. I searched for the source and tripped over an outcropping of plants.
I fell hard onto something in the clearing. Someone.
A girl. Probably planetborn. She had a halo of dark, curly hair and an even darker complexion. She looked up, and our eyes met. Foreboding slid down my throat like a small chunk of ice. She quirked an eyebrow then shouted back over her shoulder. “Binary!”
“Come here often?” I asked as casually as possible. A blur of motion and rustling of leaves, and I lay flat on my back.
“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you—”
She punched me hard in the jaw. My head lolled to the side with the impact.
We were technically on the same side. But if anyone hit me, I fought back. Apology not accepted, I supposed.
Hub rules.
She reached back to pummel my face again. I bucked her off and slammed her to the side. I didn't like violence, but if required, I was more than capable of bringing the pain. I clawed to my feet. Another projectile hit me in the middle of my back.
I tilted forward, and the serrated leaves sliced into the skin of my face, leaving tiny, burning cuts. I tried to catch myself, and the plants shredded the skin on my hands. I landed hard against the mossy ground cover. Whoever had tackled me this time was bigger and had the advantage, but not for long.
Shoving an elbow backward, I connected with the midriff of my attacker.
A loud yelp in my ear told me I'd reached my target. I only had seconds to get away.
I crawled forward on my elbows and knees. When I had enough distance, I flipped over and rocked up to my knees to see my opponent.
It was the cadet with pink hair and her entourage.
Pinky was as strong as she looked.
And she was not happy with me. Her face was a mask of rage and blood lust, not a good combination when you're on the receiving end, and two other cadets came up behind her.
I'd seen enough Hub brawls to know they were after blood.
Let them come and try to get it. I pulled myself up to my full height. My eyes stung from the blood dripping from the cuts on my forehead. I didn't bother wiping it away.
No show of weakness, no breaking eye contact. That was all part of the game.
“I got this one,” Pinky said.
The planetborn girl with dark curly hair nodded. She breathed heavily, and I wondered if they’d weighed her down like Vega.
Pinky and I squared off.
“You ever think about working together? We’re on the same team. We could help each other.”
“You attacked my friend. No one attacks my friends.”
As I thought of what to say next, she bent her knees, coiling like the landing spring in an XR-7. She didn't seem human anymore as she flew through the air toward me. I dodged to the left by pure instinct. Her hand grazed my shoulder as she landed on her front.
Before I could kick her away, she snatched my foot, and I hit the ground again. This time, I shielded my face and hands but bit my tongue. Blood filled my mouth with a coppery tang.
How had I let her get the jump on me? I swiveled onto my back, and she lunged. The girl was serious about taking me out.
I lifted my arms against her next attack.
Something smashed hard against the girl’s back with a smack. She toppled off of me.
Behind her stood Amelie. A big chunk of wood clasped in her hand and violence in her eyes.
Pinky scrambled away. Her planetborn friend and another girl joined her from the treeline but kept their distance from us.
Amelie's blue eyes filled with annoyance. Her hair hung around her face, and a large V creased her forehead.
“Thanks for the assist,” I said.
Amelie snorted and offered me a hand. “Are you okay?” Her lips pressed her expression tight.
“Yeah.”
Vega appeared through the brush and sidled up to Amelie. Her eyes locked on the group in front of us.
I scanned Pinky and her crew.
“Hey,” Vega said without turning her attention to me.
“Hey, V,” I said.
The group gathered around their leader, who rubbed the back of her head. They didn’t seem interested in attacking now that I had reinforcements.
“Let’s go.” Vega kept her eyes trained on the group.
I picked up something to fight with like Amelie had and nodded.
Having both of my friends at my sides gave me the invincible feeling it always did, and we set off to reach the flag.
Chapter Nine
Vega
Dax, Am, and I pushed as a group through the thick brush.
The sharp-edged leaves and palms were different than U170. On my home, wide fields of sev grain blanketed every hill for miles with only dottings of trees near town and up on the mountain.
I had to keep reminding myself it was just a training exercise, and we were still inside a space station. But everything felt so real, from the way the light came through the clouds to the slight smell of animal waste.
Were there real animals here?
All of this was part of the test. I could not be distracted by the VR.
At least I had my people with me. I’d never seen Amelie so fierce and single-minded. When she saw Dax about to get walloped, she had picked up a club and gone full vicious carnivore on the pink-haired cadet.
“Thanks again, Am,” Dax said, so softly I barely caught it. “I didn't know you had it in you.”
She gave him a half-smile that would have made any satellite girl proud. Bright and shining enough to win a place at court. But it wasn’t for the general public. That smile was for Dax and Dax only.
Without additional discussion, we climbed the path toward the flag. Two other groups already stood at the foot of the structure. Not even close to the height of a real mountain. It was more of a hill. But the environment felt more real than anything I'd experienced in VR. I could reach out and touch the leaves. Their edges cut me if they touched my bare skin. Sharp as a harvester’s blade.
I couldn’t spare the brainpower to assess the hows and whys of the illusion. I'm sure Amelie was doing an admirable job. Her eyes darted from mountain to jungle to the ground cover to the sky. I was glad she was between Dax and me, or else she’d venture and explore.
That girl’s curios
ity would get her killed one day.
A creaking sound wafted from the underbrush. It seemed to be coming from my right. The smell that I had detected earlier, like animal excrement or some kind of rotting fish, crept into my nose again. Something big crashed through the brush.
I choked up on my club as we entered a clearing just below the last path up the incline. Something broke from the bush. My heart stopped.
Aliens.
The fish-headed aliens.
They seemed bigger than I remembered, their faces contorted, barely recognizable as the creatures, I’d faced. Only their teeth and tentacles were the same—my blood insta-froze.
How one of the aliens got access to this place, I didn't know. I didn't care. I gripped my club tighter.
Body shaking, my heart slammed in my hollow chest. My lungs wouldn’t expand.
I remembered Jess. His ashen face. The panic. And the others that had died. This couldn’t happen again. Not to my friends.
“Run, get out of here!” I backpedaled on myself and slammed into Amelie, who dropped to the ground.
She struggled back to her feet, grabbing onto the plants and jerked her hand away. “Torquay from Esau Minor so sharp.”
An alien lurched toward us. Grabbing Amelie, I pulled her with me away from the monster. Dax followed my lead into the jungle.
“Wait!” He shouted.
I stalled, looking back. I braced for what I’d see. Had one grabbed him?
He stood near the clearing and motioned me back. “We have to get by him to get to the mountain. That's why no one’s up there yet. It's being guarded.”
The faces of my dead crewmates scrolled through my head. The tiny hairs on my arms rose in response to the sizzling electricity of the aliens’ deadly tridents.
Dax jogged over and leaned down to look into my eyes. “V, we have to get that thing. If we run, we’ll be demoted or booted. We have to try. It’s a test. The alien isn’t real.”
Again, I tried to calm my nerves, but my hyperdrive heart pumped so much blood to my head that I was getting dizzy. The thunderous roar in my ears said run, run, run with every punch of my heart.
I scurried ten more steps, trying to drag them both with me.
Dax pulled me to a stop like a big dumb idiot who wanted to die. He fixed me with his calm, brown-eyed stare.
Another rustling in the trees. My body jerked, and I reached for the firearm that I didn’t have. I pulled away from Dax and started running.
“We need you. Don't leave us. We’re a team.” The slight shake in Amelie’s voice broke through my wall of panic.
I turned and strode back to them slowly, holding my breath.
Dammit, I couldn't just leave them.
Some of the panic oozed out of me as I walked back through the green.
The hint of a smile lifted Amelie’s lips, still somehow stained pink after everything we’d been through today.
“Sorry. The Hostiles freaked me out. Memories.” I closed my eyes and tried to still the panic response the sight of the fishheads conjured. “I know they can't be real. They don’t look right. Their faces are wrong, and they’re bigger than the real ones.”
“That’s a relief. You know the saying—the bigger the aliens are, the harder they fall.” Dax arched one eyebrow and gave me his cocky, totally-boyish smile. We all laughed a bit until we heard the sound of the monster stirring again.
“Okay, so I don't know how much damage the creature can do as a hologram, but I'm assuming since these leaves are cutting the crap out of us that it can also hurt us. I don't know if they’ve programmed any weaknesses into them, but we have to think of a way to get by him to get to the flag. Thoughts or suggestions?” I shrugged.
It was nice being with them again, even in a terrible situation. I had a feeling that it would all be okay as long as they were with me.
“They don't seem to have good visuals,” Amelie said. “I think the creature uses sound or some other radiation type to explore his surroundings. It appears aquatic. I've not studied a lot of aquatic creatures. We have the advantage on land if we remove their water supply.”
Trust Amelie to put the most important info at the end.
“You're saying he's a fish out of water and to use that against him. But he still has a big freaking trident. And I've been on the business end of that thing. It melts whatever it hits.” I shivered at how close I’d come to dying at the end of a trident.
“Then we have to get rid of its weapon,” Dax said.
“That's what I did when I faced him before, but I had a gun.”
“How can we get by the fishhead without any weapons?” Amelie asked.
“One of us can draw fire,” Dax suggested. “While the others attack from the side with one of these hard things.” He lifted a large black rock.
I stifled my laugh.
Axis born kid didn’t know what a rock was.
I looked up at the shadow of darkening clouds wafting over us and worked through the scenarios. This was too real.
I smelled the soil, felt the cuts, and remembered what those tridents could do. “No, too dangerous.”
“I’m fast,” Dax said.
“I’m fast, too,” I said. But it was a lie, especially with the weighted suit. I’d been in slow motion since the beginning of the exercise, and I generally wasn’t that fast.
“Your cardio is crap.” Amelie’s full lips pressed together. “And with the added gravity on you, you shouldn’t be the attacker or the runner. You can be support on this one. If either of us gets in trouble, you can help.”
Dax’s face drained of emotion, and his ordinarily tawny skin washed out. “Amelie’s going to run then. Are you sure, Am?”
“I may not have a great deal of muscle mass, but I can run.”
I raised my eyebrows and pursed my lips.
“The satellite life isn’t all parties and guzzle bits,” she said.
Leaves rattled from the clearing. Another group, including the pink-haired cadet, started the climb. To avoid confronting the alien, they were doing a sheer climb up the side of the cliff.
“Look.” I pointed.
“We have to try,” Amelie said.
We all stared for a moment. And together we started moving as if we’d planned it. Dax broke left to wait in the foliage while Am dashed across the open field.
I inched forward, feeling like a useless idiot. I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to depend on my added strength. Without it, how would I survive the Academy? How would I survive the next ten minutes? My chest constricted as if the added grav feature had dialed up. I swallowed against the fist-sized lump in my throat.
The creature’s helmet-covered head followed Amelie as she darted out from the brush. It shifted toward her, lifting its trident. She was directly in his sights and not moving very fast. He’d tag her for sure.
I jumped into the clearing and waved my arms.
The creature rotated and unfurled two limbs, tilting the blue trident toward me.
Damn, why didn’t I have a weapon?
I forward rolled across the prickly ground. The stick clutched near my chest. I crouched an arm’s length away from the creature. Too close to fire on but close enough to be ripped apart by its tentacles.
Fighting the weight of the suit, I swung and connected with one leg. It remained standing. Not even a wobble.
Its head tilted down, and the trident adjusted direction. Crap, now it was angry.
Nothing stood between me and getting fried except a thin wooden stick.
Dax appeared above me and slammed a rock against the helmet of the alien. Water streamed from a web of cracks like blood from a wound. The stagnant water poured over me.
It wasn’t a clean hit. The creature clawed at its face shrieking, a sound like an infant pulled from its mother’s arms.
I crawled away to avoid the cascade. I glanced back to see Dax raise his weapon again.
He slammed the rock again, and this time the helmet shattered.
No cry this time. The creature collapsed to the ground and lay still.
Rock still in hand, Dax’s fingers moved back and forth over the rough surface, staring with dilated eyes at the dead alien.
Amelie rejoined us in the clearing. She observed the creature as if she’d love to drag it back to a lab and dissect it.
I used my stick to lever to my feet. My stomach rolled, but I gulped down the bile.
“We need to go,” Dax said.
“We should take the trident.” I picked it up cautiously and held it away from my body. “I don’t know how it works, but it’s better than a stick.”
“I wonder how it's powered?” Amelie’s words came out in a breathless rush.
At least two large groups were well ahead of us, but the flag remained. Something was slowing them down farther up the trail. Whatever it was, at least now we had a weapon.
I handed it to Dax. “Let's go.”
We marched back into the jungle and up the path.
Chapter Ten
Ethan
Pain in my jaw radiated up the side of my face to my head. My legs wobbled. Sweat dribbled down, burning my eyes.
I dropped to the mat on my hands and knees.
Gleason wanted to continue our talk while working out. His version of working out? Beating the crap out of me.
“Not pulling any punches?” I tried to keep my voice light. I scanned Gleason, looking for any opening, any weakness, any way to fight back against them. No weaknesses. He was a hard person to fight.
I fought well, but not as well as him. The cockpit was where I excelled.
“Get up.” He put on his old trainer's voice.
I dodged a lightning-fast kick to the midriff and leaped to my feet. I knew most of his tricks from many hundreds of hours with him since joining the Phantom Ops.
After getting tagged repeatedly, you learned. I kept my eyes fixed, watching for any twitch that might warn me of what was coming. My ears perked as I scanned my peripheral vision.
He may have another agent sneak up on me from behind to teach me a lesson. But the training gym was quiet at this time of the night cycle.
It had taken us a couple of hours to get back to the military base, and now the lighting had dimmed throughout the complex. I hadn't slept in twenty hours, but when Gleason wanted something, it happened.
Cadet: Star Defenders Book Two: Space Opera Adventure Page 6