Son of Justice

by Steven L. Hawk

  “The rules of the march as they were explained by Sergeant Twigg to my unit were very clear,” he replied, enunciating so that his words wouldn’t be misunderstood. “‘Finish ahead of the pacer within the time allowed.’ To my knowledge, Sergeant Twigg, nor any other training sergeant, issued any further rules or limitations regarding the march. Am I mistaken? Perhaps a review panel should be assembled?”

  The two Minith soldiers exchanged looks. Brek’s right ear twitched and Twigg released another of those purr-growls. Eli had touched a nerve with the assertion and, in doing so, had quietly issued his own indirect threat. Despite how much the two might want him and others gone, they had to justify every washout to a formal review panel made up of Telgoran, human, and Minith overseers. In most cases, the review was a formality—a rubber stamp placed on the scores of washout cases that passed their desks each month. On the other hand, an occasional case was challenged by a recruit and overturned. Based on his knowledge of the Minith—and of his sergeants, in particular—he had no doubt that they’d do whatever was needed to avoid scrutiny by their superiors. As such, the mere hint of a challenge—and a justifiable one, at that—would probably be enough to dissuade them from taking action.

  After a minute of quiet contemplation, Twigg finally spoke.

  “No. You are not mistaken. No further limitations were issued.”

  The giant alien soldier’s massive hands clenched into large fists and both ears quivered. If the sergeant was royally pissed before, he was thoroughly beside himself with rage now, and Eli knew he had made an enemy—if not for life, then at least as long as he was in this training detachment.

  “Thank you for reminding us of the criteria. Going forward, we will be clearer on specifics.”

  The urge to say “you’re welcome” was strong, but Eli resisted—this time. His understanding of the need to keep his mouth shut at inappropriate times was often overridden by his inability to do so. But he was learning. Besides, he was in enough hot water already with these two without pressing his luck.

  * * *

  Even now, two days after the meeting in Twigg’s office, Eli remained cautious. He knew he had barely escaped the confrontation with the two sergeants by the slimmest of margins. He couldn’t imagine returning to Waa as a washout. The humiliation and disgrace—in his own eyes, if no one else’s—would have been too much to take. For as long as he could recall, his entire life had been focused on an eventual life in the military. When other children were outside playing, he spent his time—thousands of hours—studying military history. He knew more about ancient battles and campaigns, both human and Minith, than most people knew about the most recent war.

  As the son of the greatest military mind in the Shiale Alliance, he had had the best weapons, fighters, and trainers at his disposal, and he had taken full advantage of the unique opportunities he was given. He balanced his mental training with an intensive, well-balanced regimen of exercise, running, and martial arts. Those efforts, when combined with the genes of his parents, had given him the toned, well-muscled physique and the knowledge of a well-trained soldier. Albeit, an unproven, inexperienced soldier.

  After the tense meeting, Eli had tried to refocus his efforts on remaining in the background, but it was no use. The opportunity for keeping a low profile had evaporated. Despite trying to recapture his place as just one more human among a platoon of humans, the eyes of the Minith sergeants always seemed to search him out and study him. He could be standing in the chow line, marching in formation, or working through the next training assignment with his fellow recruits. Whenever he looked their way, they seemed to be looking back.

  Like now.

  Eli stood inside the fighting ring. Sweat dripped from his body. His arms were beginning to tire, and the welt across his chest—the result of a well-timed strike from his last opponent—was beginning to throb. The ever-present sun and wind beat against his bare torso, and he needed a drink of water badly. But the rules were clear. If you won, you remained in the ring and fought.

  In his right hand, he loosely held a wooden sparring staff. At nearly two-and-a-half meters in length, and five centimeters in diameter, the Minith weapon was meant for much larger hands than his. The weight of the thing called for larger muscles as well. Nevertheless, the hours upon hours of sparring with his Minith teachers on Waa had made him an expert in its use. The recruit he faced, a large, rough-looking private from Third Platoon named Crimsa, seemed less sure. Crimsa hefted the weapon in his right hand, testing its weight and balance just like the previous six foes Eli had already bested.

  The remaining recruits in their battalion—nearly 150 in all—formed a large, human circle around the two fighters. Many were armed with their own staffs and given instructions to contain the two fighters to the ring. Eli had learned the hard way to remain well away from the outer ring. Some of his peers from the other two platoons took their responsibility a little too seriously. Several of their blows to his back and legs would no doubt leave ugly bruises for the next few days.

  Sergeant Brek stood beyond the circle, his large head and ears clearly visible over the heads of the much-shorter humans. He waited patiently for the two contestants to signal their readiness to begin. Eli had already nodded in Brek’s direction and waited for Crimsa to do the same.

  Apparently satisfied with his inspection of the staff, Crimsa finally nodded his own readiness to Brek. The sergeant clapped his hands, signaling the start of the match.

  Eli stood his ground and waited for the other man to make the first move.

  He didn’t have to wait long. Crimsa lifted the Minith staff over his head, held it at the center with both hands, and began to twirl it slowly. Eli grinned. The movement was a standard two-handed spin that was a key technique of the Minith when battling with the staffs. Crimsa had been trained at some point in the past. Eli immediately raised his own staff and began his own two-handed spin, matching his opponent. Crimsa’s spin picked up speed as he charged.

  For a fraction of a second, Eli considered allowing the other man to land a blow. If he ended up on the ground, the match would be over, and he could leave the ring. But he discounted the notion just as quickly as it entered his mind. It wasn’t in his nature to voluntarily cede a match, regardless of how sore, tired, or thirsty he was. If he was going to leave the ring, it would be because he had given it his all and been fairly beaten.

  He watched Crimsa approach at a near-run. He was at the halfway point now, and Eli increased the speed of his own staff. He waited. Watched. Waited.

  Crimsa was within ten feet when he made the move Eli was anticipating. It was a classic strike-from-spin attack, and one of the first offensive maneuvers taught to fighters. Using the momentum created by his forward movement and the spinning of his staff, Crimsa released his hold on the staff slightly. The release caused the staff to slip away from the man until, with a well-practiced grasp that Eli couldn’t help but admire, the weapon was caught in his right hand. And that hand directed the staff in a well-timed strike aimed at Eli’s head.

  Eli stopped the spin of his staff a fraction of a second before Crimsa’s blow landed and dropped. From his crouched position, he heard the other man’s staff whistle over his head as his momentum continued to carry his toward Eli. Eli twisted his crouched body to the left and whipped his own weapon around, completing a full, counter-clockwise spin. As he intended, the staff caught the other man behind the knees, and Eli put all of his strength into the sweep. The force of the blow ran up both his arms, but Eli pushed through, completing the maneuver. A grunted whoosh of air left Crimsa’s lungs as he slammed heavily to the dirt on his back.

  The match was over, and like a blanket being lifted, the world outside the ring came back into focus for Eli. He heard several comments and a scattering of shouts from the recruits manning the ring. Eli glanced at Brek saw the expected scowl. He could almost hear the growl that probably accompanied it. He put the Minith sergeant out of his mind and rushed to his fallen opp
onent, who was trying to push himself from the ground.

  “Hold up, Crimsa,” Eli instructed as he reached down to help the other man to his knees. “Are you okay?”

  “Thought I . . . had you.” Crimsa struggled to his feet with Eli’s help.

  “Yeah. You almost did,” Eli replied. “I suppose I got lucky.”

  Crimsa turned his head, fixed his eyes on Eli, and shook his head. “Don’t even try that with me, Jayson. I’ve been in enough matches to know luck when I see it. And skill.”

  “Well, we can discuss it later.” Eli spied Adrienne at the ring and, with a tip of his head, called her over. She trotted into the ring at once.

  “This one’s yours, I believe?”

  She dropped her eyes to the ground and offered a slight nod. She then gripped Crimsa’s right arm and led him slowly from the ring. She looked back at Eli briefly as she led her fellow recruit away, and Eli thought there may have been a hint of recognition in her eyes. He wondered briefly if his anonymity was still intact, then filed it away for later consideration. If so, there was nothing he could do about it, but he made a mental note to speak with her soon. If she really did know who he was, perhaps she could be convinced to keep it to herself.

  Eli turned to face Brek again and noticed that he had been joined by Sergeant Twigg. The two were quietly conversing, and as Eli watched, seemed to come to a conclusion. Twigg approached the ring and passed through the line of recruits. Most of his peers still held the aliens in a type of fearful dread, and they moved quickly aside to make way for the sergeant’s bulk.

  Twigg closed the distance quickly and stopped directly in front of Eli. Eli had to crane his head upward to look into the sergeant’s eyes, a situation that Twigg had no doubt created on purpose. The need to intimidate and threaten, especially by a supposed superior to an inferior, was as natural to a Minith as sleeping was to a human. Eli refused to be cowed, though, and returned the sergeant’s stare.

  “Sergeant Brek says that you fight well enough. For a human.” Twigg kept his voice low, his words meant only for the two of them. Eli chose to ignore the “for a human” comment. He didn’t know what response was expected, so merely waited for the Minith to continue. “Perhaps you’d like more . . . serious competition?”

  Eli was intrigued but suspicious. “What did you have in mind, Sergeant?”

  The Minith’s lip curled, and his ears flattened slightly. He was enjoying this.

  “I haven’t sparred with the staff in a very long time. Perhaps you would like to meet me in the ring?” Eli’s internal alarms started going off. He didn’t see any good coming from a match with his training sergeant. Unfortunately, he also couldn’t see any way out of the match without sounding like a coward. “Just a friendly match, little one.”

  Little one.

  The very first Minith he had ever met, Treel, had called him Little One. From Treel, one of his most trusted friends, the name was an endearment—a nickname earned as a five-year-old learning to play chess. From Sergeant Twigg, it was an affront, and felt rotten. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to hand the sergeant’s ego to him on the end of a staff. But that was a dangerous emotion, especially when going up against someone like Twigg. Eli thought about Treel’s son, Arok, his best friend since the age of seven. He had sparred against Arok, and numerous other Minith over the years, many of whom were experts with the staff, but none of them had wanted to do him serious harm. He wasn’t sure that was the case with Twigg. He had no doubt the sergeant wanted to get even for their earlier confrontation in his office.

  Regardless, even if he had really wanted to, Eli couldn’t think of any way to get out of the match. So he set his mind to winning the contest instead. There were two good approaches he had discovered for gaining an advantage over a Minith fighter. The first was to downplay your own abilities from the start and lull the alien into a false sense of superiority. This often caused them to take chances that they normally wouldn’t or to make a move that they wouldn’t typically make against a better opponent. In other words, the trick was to get them to play down to the suspected level of their competitor.

  The second approach relied on taking advantage of their tendency to anger easily. It was a much more dangerous game, but Eli had found that if he could anger his Minith opponent from the beginning, they usually responded with a fighting style that relied more on wild aggression and less on solid reasoning and technique.

  Eli suspected Sergeant Twigg would be more susceptible to the latter method. He was emotional and seemed to be someone who angered easily. On the other hand, except for the last fight with Crimsa, Eli hadn’t revealed much actual staff-fighting technique. The Minith sergeants had no idea of his experience level, and he could use that to his advantage.

  Unsure if he was making the correct choice, he decided to flatter his opponent while downplaying his own abilities.

  “Of course, Sergeant.” He tore his eyes away from Twigg, bowed his head and stared down at the ground as he replied. If he was going to act like an unworthy adversary, he might as well go all the way. “I’m probably no match for a Minith, but I’ll try my best.”

  “Excellent. Let us begin.”

  * * *

  The men and woman that formed the ring around the human and Minith combatants buzzed with curiosity and excitement. Word was passed around the circle of what was taking place, and when Sergeant Twigg picked up the staff and spun it quickly and expertly above his head, all eyes turned his way. A few of his platoon-mates offered whispered words of encouragement as Eli took his place and waited for the contest to begin.

  In Twigg’s large hand, the lengthy weapon looked much smaller than its true size—like a human twirling a mop handle. But Eli knew that to be an illusion caused by his opponent’s size. It was a simple matter of scale. In contrast, the staff he held in his hands suddenly seemed heavier and more awkward.

  The young fighter struggled to prepare in the few moments before the match started. This was his eighth match with no rest, and he had no doubt that it would be the toughest by far. He rolled his head and neck in a circle and forced the buzz of the spectators out of his mind. He twisted his torso side-to-side in an attempt to loosen the accumulated soreness and fatigue from his back and shoulders.

  He took a deep breath, held it, exhaled slowly.

  As ready as he could be, he nodded to Brek. Then he turned his focus to the large alien standing on the far side of the ring. He watched Twigg nod his own readiness. He heard the clap, and moved forward to meet the battle.

  Twigg walked directly, and with purpose, to the center of the ring, his long legs covering the distance quickly. He flicked his weapon sideways and gripped the end of the stick with his large, right hand. The entire length extended away from his body in a horizontal position. It wasn’t a standard opening move, and Eli swallowed a smile. It appeared the Minith sergeant thought he could play around with his human opponent. Not wanting to reveal his expertise with the weapon so early in the contest, Eli resisted the urge to close the distance and strike right away. He might land a stinging blow easily enough, but—while that would be extremely satisfying—it wouldn’t put the other fighter on the ground. The Minith were tough, aggressive fighters who could take a lot of punishment before going down. Eli didn’t want a long, drawn-out contest if he could avoid it. That path could be painful and dangerous. Ideally, he wanted to surprise Twigg with a trip maneuver similar to the one he had dished out to Crimsa.

  Instead, of going for the strike that Twigg had invited him to take, Eli halted his forward movement just outside the reach of the other’s staff.

  “What now, Sergeant?”

  “I’m offering you an opening, human,” Twigg growled. “You should take it.”

  Eli watched the chain of events take place in his head, as Twigg no doubt envisioned them playing out. He would step forward swinging his staff at the Minith’s head or chest. Once his swing was committed, Twigg would step backward, letting the blow pass, th
en swing his own weapon in an arcing move toward Eli’s body—or worse, his head. On most humans, who had little or no training, the move would probably work. But Eli had no intention of stepping into the trap. Instead, he put his mind to making the trap work for him.

  “I think I will,” he said, then stepped forward and began a two-handed swing of the staff. The rod moved quickly toward the Minith’s head and Eli waited for the reaction. As expected, just before the blow landed, Twigg took a step backward, waited for the tip of the staff to pass his face, then stepped forward and began his counter-swing.

  As soon as the sergeant began his movement, Eli initiated his own counter. Instead of finishing his swing naturally on two feet, as most would do, he relaxed his knees and allowed the forward energy of the swing to propel his body downward and toward his opponent. He dropped his right shoulder to the ground and rolled inside the arc of Twigg’s weapon. The roll returned him to his knees as the wooden pole whistled over his head. Twigg was now standing to his immediate right. He was off-balance from his swing and no doubt just coming to terms with the fact that his target had evaded what should have been a maiming, perhaps killing, blow.

  “What—” That’s all Twigg managed to say before the tip of Eli’s weapon caught him under the jaw with a powerful, upward thrust. Unwilling to let up now that he had gained the advantage, Eli spun clockwise and inserted his staff between Twigg’s legs from the rear. Using a move he had practiced hundreds of times, he jammed the tip of the staff into the dirt at the outside of the sergeant’s right ankle and levered the middle of his staff into the back of the Minith’s left knee. At that point, it was just a matter of exerting enough pressure until the large alien toppled sideways.

  It was a perfectly executed move that had never failed Eli over dozens of attempts.

  Only this time, it did.

  Twigg twisted his body in the air as he fell. Instead of landing on his back as Eli expected, he landed facedown. Facedown should have been fine, but for one thing: except for his hands and feet, the alien’s body never touched the ground. He landed in a classic push-up pose that—as Eli watched in amazement—Twigg quickly turned into a standing position.