Challenge of Steel

by James David Victor

  Crack! His blow hit her forearm and his greater strength meant that not only did she drop the sickle, but it also sounded as though it had fractured her arm.

  Jacques screeched in rage as she swept out with her remaining blade in blind, animal fury.

  The lieutenant dropped to one knee and hit outwards, striking her approaching forearm again and sending her arm, hand—and blade—back toward her face.

  There was a thud as the woman’s own weapon struck her between the eyes and ended her frenzied assault in an instant.

  “Holy stars!” Patch was saying behind him, panting and gasping. Anders figured that he had never seen much in the way of brutal, terrifying violence before. Too busy looking at the stars.

  But it turned out that Patch wasn’t even talking about him at all…

  There was a semi-circle of bodies across the ditch, and in the center was none other than the Ilythian Dalia, her strange fragmented encounter suit torn and ripped and spilling drops of bright blue blood.

  And she was fending off a pack of adversaries with nothing more than a knife.

  19

  Bunker

  With a thump of his palm on the stock, Anders loaded and in one smooth movement had fired his crossbow. The bolt shot past Dalia’s shoulder and took out one of the attackers coming for her.

  But Anders couldn’t move fast enough. It took time, even with his advanced training, to grab another bolt and slam it home.

  By which time, the remaining four had closed ranks around the Ilythian agent.

  Anders slammed the next bolt home into the stock and was raising his weapon as Dalia ducked under the arm of someone swinging a metal club, finishing him with her own knife in a blow under the arm.

  Thock! Anders released the next bolt. Two attackers left.

  “Jacques!” One of the women stumbled back, the long metal pole in her hand dropping for a second. It was the other half of the two-woman team. She was small where her partner had been tall, dark-haired where the other had been blonde.

  And she was clearly traumatized by the body of her partner lying in the dirt with her own sickle embedded in her head.

  Lisa jumped forward in a fit of rage, throwing a jab from the long metal pole out at the other contestant beside her. Lisa and Jacques had clearly been the ones to form this hunting party, and now it looked as though Lisa had had enough of everyone.

  Anyone was a target around the distraught woman.

  She rounded on Dalia, whirling her polearm in front of her in whisper-quick movements. Anders saw the clang and clash as Dalia attempted to parry with her blade, but Lisa had both the reach and the frenzy.

  I was the one who killed Jacques, he thought. Although he had only been defending himself. He sighted along the crossbow barrel, aiming at Lisa’s legs. He didn’t want to kill another person…

  But he would if he had to. He fired.

  There was a flash of purple light before the bolt hit home. “What?”

  “She has an energy shield, sir!” Moriarty said.

  She must have been the one to get to the lake and win the next upgrade, Anders saw. This was bad news. Energy shields came in different strengths, from the slightest of air disturbances all the way up to almost impregnable invisible walls.

  The only drawback they had was that the more resistant they were, the more they slowed down the wearer. Each energy field would sync itself to the wearer’s movements, allowing them to attack and reach out of their respective shields, but closing the instant that the wearer retracted their limbs back inside. In the heaviest of shields, the wearer could do nothing but walk around in a protected bubble, but Lisa’s was clearly a lighter one, judging from her attacks.

  “But there’s still no weapon that any of us have that can do a damn thing about it,” Anders muttered, making a judgement call. He jumped forward, grabbing Dalia by one hand and yanking her back.

  “Hsss!” The Ilythian spun and almost stabbed him in the neck with her knife.

  “Retreat! Regroup!” Anders was shouting as Lisa in her field jumped forward—

  Anders managed to block the first strike of the metal quarterstaff, but the second swept him off his feet with a painful thwack!

  “Roll, sir!” Moriarty was saying and he did so, rolling back and ending in a flip as Lisa pummeled the ground where he had been with metal strikes.

  “Oi, lady!” Anders heard a shout as something very large flashed across the ditch.

  It was very large—the entire body of the battle-ax that Patch had been carrying, somewhat uselessly. It sailed end over end and struck the edge of Lisa’s field with an almighty crimson flash. Even that wasn’t strong enough to get through, but it did push her protective bubble back in the ditch, giving the trio a small window of time to retreat.

  They ran quickly away from the chaos, Anders and Dalia leaping over broken branches and hopping from stumps to rocks, while Patch ran along the top of the embankment. There was light ahead of them and the ground started to lift as the trees grew sparser and sparser.

  They ran straight up a bald hill, where a squat gray concrete bunker stood, its blast doors already open. Uskol had gotten there first.

  “Moriarty?” Anders whispered as he crept to the edge of the open blast doors. It was dark beyond them, but Anders could see a concrete ramp descending into the darkness.

  “Patch’s node upgrade shows the fight still going on behind us, and one lifeform ahead of us,” Moriarty said, pulling data from the Voider’s hack of the satellite network.

  It had to be Uskol.

  Then this should be easy. Anders sighed with relief. “We have a trace on him. We’re going to do a hunt-and-sweep, and we intend to bring him in alive, okay?” he said, in particular to the seemingly deadly Dalia.

  “Uhh, can I have a weapon?” Patch winced behind them as there was another loud thump and a scream from further down the hill.

  Anders looked at the small man in consternation for a moment. He wasn’t sure what use he would be down there, but the lieutenant also knew that he couldn’t leave him out here with Lisa running around, taking out her grief on anyone in reach.

  However, neither Anders nor Dalia had a weapon to arm him with. “Just stay behind me, and in front of Dalia,” Anders said. “And keep your head down.”

  Patch nodded enthusiastically.

  “Lead the way, Moriarty,” Anders whispered, stepping onto the ramp.

  Which suddenly gave way under his service boots.

  “Ach!” The concrete floor had been on some sort of lever system, and Anders was flung down the steep slope into darkness. He scrabbled, thrashing out with his arms.

  Thunk. The crossbow caught on the lip of something, and Anders’s arms screamed in agony as he was suddenly spread-eagled on an angled wall of concrete, over a metal pit studded with sharpened steel spikes.

  “There’s a ledge, sir, to your right,” Moriarty informed him, and with desperate movements, he got first one toe, and then another to it, before he could slide his hands and feet to follow. The ledge led around the inside of the pit, to where there was the corridor exit.

  “Oof!” With a grunt of exertion, he made it to the far side and then looked up. The dim green light of his node was showing that the concrete ramp must have clicked back up into place above him.

  “Lieutenant?” he heard Patch’s muffled voice above.

  “I’m okay. There’s a pit trap. Climb the sides if you can!” he shouted as loud as he dared, before waiting. The trap didn’t open, and, after a moment, he heard several thuds and thunks on the top.

  “…locked! It’s…timer…” he heard Patch calling through the solid material above.

  Anders got the gist. The ramp only activated randomly, for various people who attempted to enter the bunker. That way not every contestant would be skewered and killed. But it also meant that he was alone.

  “I’m moving ahead! If you find Uskol, keep him alive!” he bellowed, his voice echoing around him. He heard a muffled sou
nd from above that could have been a reply or a shout, he wasn’t sure.

  There was no way back up. He would have to go forward.

  “Moriarty?” Anders whispered. He was walking forward to the very dull green glow of his node, illuminating little more than the floor at his feet and the walls just a little way from his shoulders. It appeared to be a concrete corridor, descending slightly. The air was strangely warm however, and sticky.

  “Uskol’s signature is glitching the further underground we go, but it still seems to originate ahead of you,” Moriarty reported.

  Great, Anders thought. Ahead of me on this level or the one above?

  His feet slid forward, and he heard a click as something underfoot shifted. Looking down, he saw that a small and exact square of the concrete had depressed.

  “Another trap!” Anders flinched and looked around, expecting the worst.

  And then there it suddenly was. Something slid out of the roof at the head of the corridor—a block of solid steel that slammed into the floor and rose again just as quickly, like a meat grinder.

  “But that’s way behind me.” Anders frowned. Maybe it was a trap intended to stop hunting parties, meaning to kill the straggling members of any pack of contestants—

  Smack! But then another one slammed into the floor ahead of the first, and then another. As well as getting closer, the frequency was getting faster.

  Anders ran.

  Slam!

  Slam!

  Slam!

  The meat-grinder walls were only a little way behind him. Their thuds had become a deep, rhythmic percussion. Anders felt blasts of expelled air cold against his back.

  “Sir!” Moriarty warned, just as the corridor seemed to open into a vertical shaft. Anders was sprinting toward it. To pause for a moment would mean that he would be crushed. The corridor continued on the other side of the shaft, but there was no way that even a trained, athletic guy like him could make that leap—

  “Overhead!” Moriarty said at the last moment as Anders saw that there was some kind of chain dangling down the middle of the pit. His foot hit the edge of the corridor.

  Slam! The wall behind him hit the ground as the next one started to slide down.

  Anders leaped, reaching up with one hand.

  “Gotcha!” He seized the chain with one hand and swung violently as the last metal wall slammed home behind him, blocking all retreat.

  But now the chain itself started to lower. Moving quickly, Anders hooked the crossbow—his only weapon save for the knife—onto his utility belt and seized the chain with two hands, swinging his legs.

  “Thermal expansion directly below, sir,” Moriarty said, just as a wave of hot air gusted up around him. Accompanying it was a dull red glow, and it was growing brighter and brighter.

  “Dammit!” Anders swore. The chain was lowering in stages, and the fire below was starting to roar and surge upward. If he had managed to save himself from being killed, impaled, or mangled, then he would only end up being scorched to a crisp!

  He was forced to climb hand over hand at the same time as he jack-knifed his legs back and forth.

  The corridor that was his chance of escape was steadily rising ahead of him. He had to be quicker!

  With a thud, his boots hit the metal plate behind, and he kicked off, using it as momentum to push out as fast and as hard as he could.

  And then, at the apex of his swing, he was forced to let go. Anders sailed through the air like a long-jumper as the raging fire burst toward him.

  “Ugh!” He landed with a smack inside the far corridor, with a wall of orange and red engulfing the pit he had been hanging inside a second earlier.

  “They call this thing a game. It’s not a game. It’s torture!” Anders groaned as he rolled over onto his front, his body aching. And then he realized that he was missing something.

  His crossbow. It had slipped from his utility belt in the desperate climb and swing to get away from the fires. All he had left was his knife, versus someone who was probably one of the most competent fighters in the entire Reach of the Throne.

  “This day just keeps on getting better and better,” Anders growled as he pushed himself up to his feet.

  “I take it that wasn’t a literal statement, sir?” Moriarty commented.

  “No, Moriarty, it really wasn’t.” Anders turned to see that there was another glow that met his own. It was a pale sort of bluish light, and it was coming from further ahead. He drew his knife and crouched, edging forward. “What are they going to throw at me now?” he muttered.

  “Just your quarry, sir. The satellite geo-sensors identify just one life sign up ahead.”

  Anders took a deep breath, reversed his grip on his knife to point back and held it high, and crept forward like a hunting wolf.

  20

  Hecta 3 Far Orbit

  “AND THE RED JUDGE USKOL HECATIA HAS GAINED THE HEAVY BLASTER! THAT IS SURE TO GIVE HIM AN UNCOMPROMISING LEAD!”

  The words of the Challenge announcer chimed over the Reaver-class battleship’s internal speakers. Under the dim lights of the bridge, Commander-General Cread listened with idle interest.

  “AND WITH LISA MORAINES TEARING UP THE CHALLENGE CHART, THIS IS HOW OUR LEADER BOARD LOOKS, FROM BOTTOM TO THE TOP:

  4th Place: The late-contender, Lieutenant Anders Corsigon!

  3rd Place: The mysterious Unknown Ilythian!

  2nd Place: The grief-stricken Lisa Moraines!

  1st Place: The savage Uskol Hecatia!

  IT’S ALL STILL TO PLAY-FOR, FOLKS, AS WE REACH THE EXCITING CLIMAX!”

  “How under the stars are either of them still alive!” Commander Cread flicked his wrist to enlarge the feed that covered Anders. The Challenge site was not only covered from above by Hecta 3’s Challenge satellites but scattered throughout every current arena were tiny node-surveillance cameras that allowed millions of viewers to track their favorite.

  Cread scowled as he saw the lieutenant edging toward the opening of the Challenge Pit, the final death-match site of the entire game for this season.

  He held his knife up just in front of his face and was sidestepping cautiously forward. It was a clear close-combat infiltration stance, Cread thought. And probably one that had been taught him in the military academy.

  “He knows that he can’t win against an opponent with a ranged weapon,” Cread performed his own commentary as he watched the bruised, battered, and gaunt man edge forward. “Which is why he means to sneak up on Hecatia…”

  Although annoyed, Cread was in fact impressed by the lieutenant’s tenacity—and sheer luck—at having survived so far. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who thought that, as the viewing figures for the MPB officer were also phenomenal when compared with the others.

  CHALLENGE RANK BY VIEWERS:

  Lieutenant Anders Corsigon: 2,479,314

  Uskol Hecatia: 1,856,902

  Lisa Moraines: 726,389

  “Two and a half million!” Cread glowered. It was true that although Anders was behind on the kills that the game required, he had also taken part in some incredible scenes. Fighting off the mutant bat-things with nothing but his feet. Fighting Master Jid. Riding one of the obelisks that the Challenge masters had released across the jungles.

  It seems that our lieutenant has a penchant for surviving, Cread thought glumly. He had thought that the man would have died in the first few hours as he had already been injured and should never have been able to make that climb!

  But no matter… Cread sighed as one of the nearest Marines of his Special Division turned to him and stood to attention.

  The commander-general knew precisely what this was all about. That particular Marine had been tasked with only one thing, and he had also been under very strict orders not to deviate until it was completed.

  “Commander-General, sir!” the man said with a nod.

  “Forward the feed to my command chair.” Cread straightened his black and gold jacket and readied himself for the execution of
a plan that was a long time in the making.

  “Open a channel,” Cread told the Reaver’s computers. “Full security protocols. Destination: Imperial 1. Restricted Access Account: Cread.”

  There was a sudden flare of dull blue around the chair as the ship’s communicator activated the highly advanced ansible system it transported. The message was pinged through the subatomic particles, skipping across and through the web of dimensional quanta to arrive many billions of miles away at the heart of throne space.

  The blue field flushed a deeper gold, and Cread knew that his message had made contact. There was no holo-projection of the person he was talking to, but then again, there never was. The Eternal Empress encouraged the belief that it was sacrilege to replicate her image in such digital forms.

  “The mission is good to go, Your Majesty,” Cread stated authoritatively and succinctly.

  There was a pulse of deeper gold, before a woman’s voice boomed inside the sphere yet was completely silent to any of the bridge staff.

  “The hour is late, Commander-General,” the voice of a woman returned. But the voice was only barely feminine. It was overlaid and touched upon with harmonies and harmonic frequencies that made it sound more like an entire heavenly choir singing in polyphony.

  And it was loud in Cread’s ears, very loud. The commander-general wondered if his leader and most glorious ruler of humanity turned up her volume on purpose, just so that she could sound like a god.

  “But the impact will be great, Your Majesty. We are entering the final battle amongst the challenge contestants. There will never be more viewers than this…” Cread was saying.

  “Do not presume to explain the obvious to me, Commander-General. I did not elevate you in order to be told what I already know,” the voice of the ruler of the Golden Throne stated. Even Cread managed to squirm uncomfortably in his command seat at that. It was worrying, being scolded by the most powerful human in the history of the universe.