by Kal Spriggs
***
I logged into the game network and, despite telling myself that I wouldn't, I sent a message to The Great. I need to stop banging my head against this wall, I thought, yet I waited patiently for a response. I knew he was online, I could see the indicator, though it showed he was in a game already. Still every other time I'd messaged him, he had dropped out and played with me. Well, I amended, he destroyed me every time.
A moment later, I received a reply. “Sure, but do you want to play something else?”
The message linked to something called Combat Skimmer Pro.
I messaged him back that I was up for it and loaded the simulation. It seemed to be a very realistic flight simulator. Great, I thought, another game for him to beat on me with. Yet I felt a bit of excitement as the simulated engines spun up.
A moment later, I heard his voice in my earpiece. He sounded oddly familiar, “Okay, thanks for playing me here. I'm trying to keep my skimmer license and they credit simulator hours towards that.”
“You've got your skimmer license?” I asked in surprise. I thought I had heard that cadets could get one as part of their training, but I had assumed that The Great was another candidate.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, “with a class five rating, everything but a suborbital. At the Enclave, they let us test for skimmers early.”
“The Enclave?" I asked and I felt something click in my brain. "Wait... Karmazin?”
“Yeah," he said in a surprised tone, "What, you didn't know it was me?”
I felt a flush climb my cheeks. I had assumed it was some other candidate, one I didn't know. I had never expected it would be Karmazin. All the countless hours we had spent together, playing the war games, bantering back and forth… and me losing. He must think I'm a null brain, I thought.
“Wait... you really didn't know it was me?” Karmazin asked. “Even with my handle? I mean, A-Strong, everyone knows that's you. But you didn't put mine together?”
The Great, I thought, oh, it's obvious, Alexander The Great.
Now I felt even stupider. “Well,” I said, “clearly you were busy, I'm sorry I interrupted.”
“Wait,” he said, “look... don't go. You should at least try out this sim, right?”
“Sure,” I said. I had wanted to test for my skimmer license. But most of Century limited that to sixteen… fourteen with parental consent. I had another two years before I could test... but it wouldn't hurt to play a little, first.
“Great,” he said. “Authorize me to join and I'll show you the controls.”
He merged into my cockpit and went through all the controls. It was odd, but in the simulation he looked pretty much like he did in real life. I hadn't ever wondered about how my own avatar looked. Our datapads didn't have the capacity to put together a full virtual reality, but they simulated it with projected images, just good enough to feel real.
To someone who wasn't in the immersive environment, it looked pretty odd to see people pointing and manipulating invisible things while staring into empty air. I'd gotten past that, though I had heard that newer rigs, like those in the Parisian Sector of Guard Space, had fully immersive, shared three dimensional projections.
There was something odd about "sharing" my environment with Karmazin. It didn't really feel real. I'd shared sims with others before and there was never quite the same feeling as being in person. In the flesh, Karmazin had a... warmth. Here, it almost felt like I was dealing with his ghost.
I shivered at that thought.
“Okay, that's everything you need,” Karmazin said and his avatar vanished.
A moment later, I heard his voice in my earbud. “Okay, we can start it up in a tandem game, if that's okay with you?”
“Yeah,” I said. For some reason, I was having issues thinking of working with him instead of against him, yet as I went through the startup procedure, and lifted the skimmer into the air, it felt almost natural as his skimmer came up on my flank.
My flight was not steady by any measure of the word. Flying a skimmer, even the simplified controls of this one, was like balancing a plate on the tips of two spoons while marbles rolled around on the plate. The software helped, quite a bit, and I stayed in the air and flew in a (mostly) straight line, but I didn't have any illusions that I was really proficient.
“Okay, we're coming up on the first engagement,” Karmazin said. “Remember, weapons are on the central console. Flip them on, level the target carat on the enemy, and let’s do this.”
I flipped the weapons on and we swooped over a ridge. My heart began to race as simulated gunfire came from below and I swept my skimmer in a broad loop. I managed to line up a shot on where I thought the gunfire came from and fired my cannons.
I couldn't help a whoop of excitement as the skimmer's weapons roared. A moment later, I saw an explosion and the simulator credited me with a kill.
“Nice,” Karmazin said. “I caught the one off to the side. Want to keep playing?” There was an eager tone to his voice, one that made me feel excited too.
I felt a silly grin spread across my face. For just a moment, I had forgotten to be embarrassed that it was Karmazin who had kicked my butt so many times and I had just enjoyed myself. Clearly, he was too.
“Yeah,” I said, “let's do this.”
***
Chapter Seventeen: Leadership and Stuff
Sashi took a seat at her desk and nodded at me, “Working the tactical assignment still?”
I restrained a sigh and gave her a nod. Most of the technical classes I could handle, but the military-themed classes were harder for me. I felt like I had learned a lot from the Grinder... but I still had a lot to learn. The interesting part was now that I had seen some of it in the training, hands on, it was easier for me to wrap my head around some of the ideas.
But my lowest grade was still in the Intro to Ground and Space Tactics series of classes. As an effort to bring it up, I'd spent the past few hours working on the final assignment, most of the rest of our section had already turned it in, confident that they'd score well enough.
Well enough might not be good enough for Champion Enterprises, I thought. After all, there were only twenty-one days until I graduated, which meant only thirty days until I started my internship. Somehow, the count didn't make me feel better. I almost felt like time had slipped away, especially over the past month.
“You look at the standings recently?” Sashi asked as I finally hit send on my computer.
“No,” I said. Honestly, I hadn't even thought about standings in the past month. The exhaustion from the Grinder and then the shock as we went into classroom training had meant I felt out of it. I'd almost reverted to earlier behavior and shut off from people, except for Ashiri Takenata's intervention. I knew most of my squad would be down in the “study room” going through more of the tactical games. Yet just now, I had no desire to do anything even remotely related to the last assignment. “How you doing?” I asked.
Sashi grinned, “I'm in the top ten.”
“Really?” I asked, “That's awesome!” I felt good for her, I knew it meant a lot.
“You're up there too,” Sashi said. “Alexander Karmazin as well, Kraig Josephic too, and even Ashiri Takenata.” That was five of the ten just from our section, which was amazing considering that our section only held twenty out of the entire remaining class of almost fifteen hundred Junior Cadets.
“Really?” I asked in surprise. I hadn't pegged Josephic as being that good, though Ashiri doing well didn't surprise me.
“Yeah... which is why I wanted to see if you still want to team up for the finals.”
I looked up in surprise, “You think it'll matter?” I'd heard that the final exercise was a mix of tests and then a series of tactical exercises, both simulated and physical. Ashiri seemed convinced that the game access she'd rigged would be part of it. She thought that the teachers had let them get that access, which was one reason she was playing those tactical games so hard, I knew.
On the other hand, I
didn't really care about my final ranking. My grades were what Champion Enterprises would look at, I knew. That was what concerned me, not a ranking that would only matter if I went onward to the Academy. For that matter, I wished the best for Ashiri, Sashi, Josephic, and even Karmazin.
“I think that if we work together,” Sashi said, “we'll have it in the bag.”
I pursed my lips as I considered it. We still didn't know what all the final exercise would involve. There would be no way to prepare to work together. For that matter, I didn't really think it would be fair to Ashiri, I considered her a friend and I didn't want to throw that away over a ranking that didn't matter to me. “I don't know,” I said. “Have you talked to Ashiri?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, “She wants to go it alone. She actually said that, can you believe it?” Sashi’s tone was dismissive in a way that made me feel uncomfortable.
I nodded, “Yeah. I mean, it's kind of unfair otherwise.”
Sashi shook her head, “Jiden, what does that have to do with it?”
I kept my mouth closed on that. I knew how important this was to Sashi and why, but I still felt like this was the wrong way to go about it. “Look,” I said, “let's just see how things play out, okay?”
“Well,” Sashi said with a roll of her eyes, “that kind of attitude won't take you far with Champion Enterprises, will it?”
I narrowed my eyes, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” she said, “I understand that they review our rankings, too. They actually recruit some of the top candidates from each class... I mean, I know you already have an internship lined up with them, but I bet it would look good if you ranked well.”
I sat back and chewed on my lip, “I hadn't heard that.” Then again, Sashi had already known a lot about Champion Enterprises that I hadn't. It wouldn't surprise me that they would try for the best talent... and whatever illusions I had about that at the beginning, I had none now. The people in my section were some of the most talented people I'd ever met. I had no doubt that they could succeed at any academic program. These classes we were taking were hard, tailored courses designed to challenge us individually... and everyone left was there because they were smart, capable, and able to handle stress.
In my opinion, Champion Enterprises would be stupid if they weren't trying to get people like them. “Okay,” I said finally, “Let's see how this turns out, but if it looks like we can work together, I'm good for it.”
“Excellent,” Sashi said. “There for a second I thought I'd have to ask Josephic and I don't know if I could trust him.”
I grimaced a bit at that, but I didn't respond. Josephic was from third squad, and while he was a big, oafish-looking guy, he had proven surprisingly capable at the classes. He hung out a lot with Dawson, from my squad, but I didn't talk much with him. Yet if Sashi was desperate enough to score well that she had seriously considered teaming up with someone she only barely knew, then she was serious about this. I just hoped that she didn't expect me to do something that might hurt Ashiri.
“Well,” Sashi said, “I was going to go talk with Commander Terrence, he's been tutoring some other Candidates and they said he's dropped some hints about the final exercise. I'll tell you if I get anything from it.”
“Okay,” I said, “see you later.”
***
I was down in the study room by myself when Alexander Karmazin found me. He glowered at me, “So... I hear that you and Sashi are teaming up?”
“What?” I asked. “How did you know that!”
“Takenata told me that Sashi asked her already... Josephic can't keep a secret, he'd be bragging about working with her to me within ten minutes, and I know she wouldn't ask me, so I took an educated guess,” Karmazin said. “You shouldn't do it.”
“I'm not breaking any rules,” I said stubbornly.
“You aren't,” he nodded, “but that doesn't mean its right. The whole point of a ranking system is to judge individual talent... you're gaming the system.”
I shrugged, “Can you blame me? I've started out from the beginning at a disadvantage... you on the other hand, have had everything come to you easily.”
His face darkened, “I've had nothing given to me.”
I thought of the paternity suit... apparently I'd hit a sore spot, “Look, Karmazin, I didn't mean it that way, I just mean that you've taken to this naturally, you're good at it, I'll never be more than okay, I have to work harder at it.”
He stared at me for a long moment before he shook his head, “You really don't get it, do you? Jiden, all of us are working hard. I'm every bit as overwhelmed as you are. I've got a little bit of experience from... well, that doesn't matter, but that doesn't mean any of this is easy.”
“I realize it isn’t easy,” I snapped. I felt my fists clench as he confronted me. I felt angry, worse, he made me feel guilty, even ashamed for agreeing to work with Sashi.
“Fine,” He said. “It's not easy. But I will say that you're not just okay, you're good at this Jiden. That is why I think gaming the system is a bad idea... you could be really good here.”
I snorted at that, “Right. Me... in the Militia, for real? Even if I really wanted that... what would my parents say? They don't even talk to my... to the Admiral. My mother hasn't told me anything about any family history. I'm caught up in this weird triangle that you, Sashi, and I all share... and I'm the only one in the dark.”
Karmazin looked away. “It's not my place to tell... even if I knew the whole story. I've just got bits and pieces that I picked up from reading. It's not like my father and I ever had any conversations about it... or anything else for that matter.”
I almost asked him, then, what he did know, but I hesitated, still shocked by the very idea that I would continue on to Century's Military Academy after Prep School graduation. It was ridiculous... yet I couldn't help a wistful thought for just a moment. It was hard and it wasn't what I'd pictured for my future at all... but it was a lot of fun and I had never felt so much a part of a group as I did with my squad.
But I had already accepted Champion Enterprises internship. For that matter, it was what I wanted. Tony was there, I would have a great career, I could put my skills to use, follow my dreams of being an engineer, and maybe even help make Century stronger by developing better engineering systems for our home-built ships. And the money doesn't hurt, either, I thought. Tony's father could afford all the things that my parents had never been able to... and I knew that Karmazin wouldn't understand that. He was likely to have a stack of money from the paternity suit, even if he didn't, I had no doubt that he had grown up around money.
“Look,” I said. “Let me worry about me, you worry about you, okay?” It wasn't like we were friends. I mean, sure, he had helped me out before... but he hadn't ever expressed anything more than that. In the past two months, I'd seen him in class and occasionally during the study hours, but we hadn't even really talked since the Grinder. Even then, that had all just been stuff in the moment, warning each other about where we saw threats and that kind of thing. Well, I corrected, I've been playing games with him for that whole time, but it wasn't like we really talked, and since that flight sim, neither of us had time for it.
Karmazin looked away, “Fine.” For whatever reason, I saw him clench his jaw. I really don't understand boys, I thought. There was something so similar to his expression as what I'd seen on Tony's face, when he wanted something and his parents didn't indulge him. On Tony, I'd always secretly thought it made him look pouty or sullen. On Karmazin's face, somehow it made him look brooding, like the hero on one of the trashy romances my mother read.
I mashed that thought down before it went any further. I wasn't even friends with Karmazin, I certainly wasn't going to think of him as anything other than a classmate. Ashiri was my friend and Sashi was my friend. Tony was my friend too, but he had also lied to me. I still wasn't sure what to think about that... or the fact that Sashi had lied to me too.
But it wasn't as if Karm
azin had told me the truth, either. I still didn't know anything about his past. All I knew was what I had heard from Sashi and little bits that didn't add up to anything.
“Alright,” I said, “I'm glad we had this talk.” He gave me a frown, almost as if he realized that he had said or done something wrong, but he didn't understand what. Well, if he was going to keep me in the dark about his past then he could stay in the dark too. “Bye,” I backed him out of my room and then closed the door almost in his face.
With him gone, the room seemed suddenly empty. The concrete walls and dim lighting which had seemed so comfortable felt almost menacing. “I'm making the right decision,” I said out loud. So what if I gamed the system a bit. I was just trying to get high enough in the ranking that it would give me an advantage in my internship. Sashi had said it would be alright and her older brothers had told her it was the thing to do.
So why did I feel so bad about it?
***
Chapter Eighteen: The Beginning Of The End
I didn't really have a good idea of what the final exercise would consist of. But when Senior Cadet Instructor Mackenzie ordered us to assemble our squads in full battle gear the morning after our final grades posted, I knew it was time.
I formed my squad up without really needing to think about it and we stood at attention but still with goofy smiles plastered on our faces. None of us could help it, we had made it, we were going into the last week, seven days. Some part of me actually hoped that a trip to the Grinder would be a part of the exercise. I felt like I'd learned so much, that I would do so much better this time.
“Candidates,” Mackenzie said with his friendly drawl, “today you'll begin part of the final exercise. From this moment out, you'll be graded on individual standings only. There is a time for teamwork and for helping each other, and there is a time for evaluations. This is part of that time. Just as you wouldn't team up for an exam, you aren't supposed to team up for this final exercise.”