by Adam Holt
“Hmmph,” Sunjay said, “you won’t be laughing when I take down an Ascendant with my bare hands.” He strutted off and picked up a staff from the wall.
I decided not to tell them about my mom’s letter. I’ve kept the wrong kind of secrets before, but this one felt fine. It was the right kind of secret that felt more like hiding a treasure than hiding a crime. Her words were always in the back of my mind though, and sometimes they crept to the front, like when my dad taught us a series of martial arts moves in the arena. He led us through a few that were designed to break arms or knock out an opponent. He finished with some submission holds that would kill. He showed us a chokehold that would cut off blood flow to the brain. It would make an opponent lose consciousness in seconds. It was the first time we realized that we might have to kill or be killed on Europa. We all practiced the maneuver gently on Buckshot to see if we had the right form. Then we had to attack dad in full speed.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’ll tap the ground or pass out. That’s the worst that could happen.”
Gulp. He wouldn’t let us fake it either. If we didn’t attack quickly enough, he would flip us over onto our sides and pin us to the ground. “Dead,” he would say. “You’ve got to be stronger and quicker. Slide the hand under my chin faster next time. Again.” By the end, Sunjay had it down. Janice and I found ourselves getting flipped most of the time. We didn’t have the strength for these chokeholds. That’s what I told myself, but I knew it was something else, at least for me. How much could I control my powers? What if they returned just as I was choking him? That thought terrified me. He doubled our pull-ups and pushups routine.
A few days later I woke up, sore as usual, but felt strange in some other way. I couldn’t put my finger on it. My stomach felt queasy, like when you take that first drop on a rollercoaster. Sitting up did not change the feeling, so I pushed myself out of bed and was surprised to launch myself into the middle of the room. Then I understood. The Mini-Manehad reached the halfway point. Constant acceleration ended. It was almost time for constant deceleration, which would feel exactly the same. But here at the halfway point, dad gave us few hours of heavenly low gravity. Finally!
I double-checked with a jump that sent me to the ceiling. Then I woke up Sunjay and Janice. Until then the Mini-Mane was simply a fancy alien townhome. Now we were truly in space! It was like a birthday present from the universe.
Sunjay was already up. He came out of the bathroom again with his hair slicked back, smiling but looking a bit green.
“You okay?” I asked.
“I think I’m low-gravity sick,” he said. “Let’s get upstairs though. I’ll be fine.”
Janice joined us. We scrambled effortlessly up the ladder to the upper deck, where my dad stood in front of the star map with his hand on the controller. A large number filled the screen. The number went from .68 to .67 as we entered. He took his hand off the controller and smiled at our sudden appearance. I bobbed up and down on my feet like a boxer with too much energy. He had been looking forward to this moment just as much as I had.
“You noticed,” he said. “I’m taking us off auto-pilot and decelerating us to Europa’s gravity. .1335G.”
“13.35%,” said Janice.
“Right,” he continued. “If you weigh 100 pounds, you’re about to weigh 13.35 pounds. So careful how hard you jump. You’ll hit that ceiling like a ton of bricks.”
.5G. My weight shifted to the balls of my feet. Just a little push from my calves shot me three feet in the air.
.25G. Now we’re getting somewhere. A little push and we floated into the air like Charlie in the chocolate factory. Sunjay stood on his hands and catapulted himself to the ceiling. Buckshot balanced on his index fingers like some sort of carnival acrobat. Janice did a quadruple somersault and stuck the landing. Pretty impressive.
.1335G. I knew what to do. I squatted and thrust myself into the air, did half a cartwheel, and landed with my feet on the ceiling for a moment. I found a grip for one hand and hung upside down like Spider-Man, then let myself fall slowly back to the ground upside down. On the way down, I grabbed a staff off the wall and stunned Sunjay. Then I used it to toss my dad away from the starmap, which disappeared in an instant. The arena appeared in its place. The Ascendant fans filed in. It was on.
“Stop!” my dad commanded. He leaped across the room, grabbed the staff out of my hand, and then took another one down from the wall.
You’ve screwed up this time, Crewmember Tully, I thought to myself. You’ve finally pushed the commander’s patience too far. Fortunately, I was dead wrong.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” he said, aiming the staffs at us and smiling. “You’d better run!”
My dad shot at us with both staffs.
The ensuing fight in the virtual arena was a crazy maze of flying bodies, incinerator bursts, mid-air collisions, and surprise attacks. We wrestled the staffs away from Dad with Buckshot’s help and then the melee started all over again. The virtual crowd went nuts, stomping their feet, chanting and singing in Greek, as we crisscrossed the arena. After about five minutes, with everyone panting, we came back to the floor.
“Okay, tournament time,” my dad said. He grabbed an empty burlap sack from Cooper’s and then produced five slips of paper. “Put your name on a slip.”
“Can we put a nickname?” asked Sunjay because he had to ask something.
“Sure,” my dad continued. “The first two names drawn will fight each other. Scoring will work like this: get three hits and you win the round.”
Everyone jotted down a nickname on the card.
“Janice,” my dad said, “would you help me out with this?” The two of them sat on the black bench, drew the other names, and then typed them into Janice’s holophone. What are they doing? I wondered. Oh, making a tournament bracket! Butterflies filled my stomach. It wasn’t just from the low gravity.
They returned moments later. “Okay, everyone ready for this? Okay, Janice, hit it!”
Her holophone projected this into the air:
Everyone had nicknames but I pieced it together in a nanosecond – “White Knight” was my dad’s call sign in the Navy, and “Shuckbot” was, well, pretty obvious. So was “Carpool” and “Zaxon the Almighty.” The good news was that the three of us were all in the same bracket and the astronauts were on the other side. Maybe White Knight and Shuckbot would tire each other out before fighting one of us. The really good news was the prize.
“Dad, you brought candy on board?” I asked. “When did you plan to tell us this!”
“The right time,” he said, “which is now. I figured a few packs of gummy worms might come in handy. Oh, and this.” From behind his back he produced one can of Turbofizz. Sunjay lunged for it. Not even space nausea could kill his appetite. We composed ourselves and examined the bracket.
“Okay, we’ve got Carpool—oh, ha! That’s you!” said Sunjay, pointing to Janice. “Your fight first round is against Zaxon the Almighty! You know who that is?”
“Bangers, who else would pick that name?” she asked, grabbing a staff from the wall. “Sunjay, just promise NOT to take it easy on me.”
“Heck, no, not if a Turbofizz is on the line,” said Sunjay.
This ought to be quick, I thought. No offense to Janice but she was a rookie and Sunjay was a martial artist. They faced off in the arena. Sunjay bobbed up and down and Janice looked timid and frozen. After clicking staffs and bowing, my dad yelled, “En garde. Fight!”
Sunjay wasted no time...showing off. He spun the staff above his head, a la Lincoln Sawyer, and then performed a quadruple front flip while shooting stun shots her way. She hid behind her staff and blocked them. When he landed, he brought down his staff hard on the arena floor with a flurry of purple sparks, all while flexing his arms. He admired his arms and winked at Janice. To everyone’s surprise, she winked back. Then she smirked and casually leaned on her staff. “Sunjay, you look so hot right now,” she said. “Look at those arms.”
“Really?” Sunjay looked down and flexed his arms again with his staff in front of him. Whoops.
STUN.
“Round one goes to Carpool,” said my dad.
“Dangit!” he yelled. “No fair! I’m better than that. Just because you think I’m hot and I think you’re hot doesn’t mean you can say that in the middle of a fight!”
“You think that I’m hot, too?” She shot him a devious smile.
Until that moment, no human, fish, bird, or cat had ever flirted with Sunjay Chakravorty before. He dropped his staff and then turned three shades of red beyond red. I’ve never seen him get embarrassed about anything. It was epic.
“Are you kidding me or truthing me?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you later,” she said.
That almost drove Sunjay crazy.
Round Two began. Sunjay was off balance and out of focus. Well, he was focused on one thing.
“I can’t live like this!” he yelled, trying to fend off Janice. “Do you like me or not?”
She didn’t say anything but pressed her attack. She eventually knocked him off his feet and earned a second point. Buckshot leaned over to me. “She is playing him like a fiddle. You think you can beat her?”
I nodded yes but was not so sure.
Fortunately, I didn’t have to find out. Sunjay pulled himself together after that second point and rolled off the next three points straight. He looked relieved.
He helped Janice to her feet after the final stun. “Okay, you said you would tell me.”
“I said later,” she said. “Not yet.”
Poor Sunjay. He flexed his arm, flipped his hair, and pouted in the corner.
My dad and Buckshot fought the next round. Stars, they were ferocious. Watching grown-ups fight brought back memories of Lincoln Sawyer on board the Adversity. Memories and feelings, fear and anger, diving for my life as Lincoln ripped apart the space lab, watching him toss my friends around the room, and finally me tossing him into outer space, watching the light in his cold blue eyes die. Before I knew it, the match ended. My dad won 3-1.
It was time for Zaxon and Tully.
Sunjay spun the staff over his head and whacked the floor with an electric crack.
“You don’t think you can handle Zaxon, do you?” he asked.
“Bring it on, Ascendant scum.”
We tapped staffs, bowed, and faced off. Sunjay’s biceps bulged. Stars, when did he put on that muscle? I almost fell victim to his first stun shot. The purple ball of energy struck the wall behind me and dissipated.
“You awake, Tully?” he asked.
“Wide awake,” I said, launching a stun of my own, which he dodged easily. We circled one another. I usually hung back and played defense but he knew my style too well. I decided mix it up and throw myself at him. He had the same idea. We surprised each other by charging into the middle of the room, our staffs clashing furiously. Attack, attack, counterattack. We both threw our best combination moves at each other, until he swept my leg and I hit the floor. I kept my staff up before he could whack me in the head. He had taken a big swing, which left me enough time to counterattack. I swept his legs with my staff and used the staff to toss him against the far wall. Ha, Zaxon wasn’t so tough.
Bzzzrrrttt. Dangit. I felt my limbs go stiff, like I was encased in ice. Sunjay lay on his back with his staff pointed at me.
“Stun shot,” he said, hopping up and holding out his staff while flexing his arms. Janice looked impressed.
“One point for Zaxon,” said Janice. “Nice move.” Sunjay bowed.
Clearly I forgot Lincoln Sawyer’s first rule of combat: never let your guard down. The effects of the stun shot disappeared after only a few seconds. I was angry with myself. An Ascendant would have incinerated me by then. I would be a pile of ashes ready to be swept into the gutter. Not the way I planned on ending my life.
Embarrassed and frustrated, I faced off against Sunjay for round two. We met in the middle of the room again. This time I was ready for his foot sweep. I blocked it with my staff, but his staff connected with the back of my hand. Breathtaking pain erupted and shot up my shoulder.
Memories and feelings, anger and pain. Of Trackman digging his thumbs into my hands, taking pleasure in my pain. Of Tabitha disappearing behind the portal. In the midst of those memories, time slowed down. Sunjay kept up his attack, but I had no trouble dodging him. I wasn’t all there anymore. Part of me was lost somewhere in the red mist. Clack, clack, clack. Red, red, red, red, red.
He attacked again and again, finally doing a back handspring and landing on the far side of the room. He was about to fire another stun shot, but instead I fired one just to his left. I knew what he would do, so I fired an incinerator shot to his right. He fell into the trap. I watched the purple ball of fire consume him as he jumped right into it. I smiled and pumped my fist. I imagined he wasn’t really Sunjay. He was Trackman. You took my mom. He was the Lord Ascendant. You captured my friend. He was the enemy. You want my world. He deserved to burn. I walked forward, fired a stun, then another incinerator and another. Burn, burn, burn. Red, red, red. We would save Tabitha, my powers would return, and I would burn the Ascendant to ashes and scatter them across the universe.
Far away someone screamed. Then the scream was cut short. I could feel their pain in my hands and hear the Sacred’s voice inside my head. Fight, but do not hate.
Hate. Is that what this is? It doesn’t feel so bad. I launched another incinerator shot. There was a metallic taste in my mouth and the air smelled polluted, burned.
Someone ripped the staff out of my hands, returning me to the upper deck of the Mini-Mane. A few feet from me Sunjay crumpled to the floor, right next to the box of dynamite. A wave of guilt crashed over me as I realized what I had done.
“I didn’t mean to!” I yelled.
Sunjay gasped for breath, surrounded by a purple glow. The incinerator shot did not disappear though. It surrounded Sunjay. He breathed in the hot gaseous fumes. Janice tried to get closer to him but the heat was too much. The incinerator shots had singed his hair and was burning the oxygen around him.
“Tully, what did you do?” she said. “You had him beat! You could have stopped. Commander, help him!”
There was no time to apologize. Sunjay needed something. I pushed her aside and crashed through the purple glow. It burned but I had felt heat before. My hand reached Sunjay’s chest. His lips were starting to turn blue. That I could see. His lungs were clamped shut. That I somehow knew. My dad ran forward but I motioned him away.
I need you now, I thought. I need you.
Beside us, there was a rumble. The box of dynamite. Everyone else backed toward the other side of the room. Okay, that’s not what we need. My best friend was dying. We didn’t need a box of dynamite shaking uncontrollably beside us. I kept my hand on Sunjay’s chest. He gripped my wrist and pleaded with me with tears in his eyes. His lips moved but no sounds came out. Make it stop. Fix me, he pleaded. Somehow I could hear his thoughts, but they were getting more desperate and fuzzier by the second. He needed air. His eyes looked glassy, then they closed as he lost consciousness. A silence in his mind, and in my mind one word.
No. No, no, no.
Then things got interesting.
Beside us the box rattled again. The word “FRAGILE” started to glow, and through the cracks in the old wooden box seeped a soft red mist. It gathered around my hand on Sunjay’s chest, and I could feel it penetrate my skin. A humming sound filled my ears, red filled my mind. Then the mist, in one pulse, left my hand and hit Sunjay’s chest like one of those heart-shocker machines. The purple glow evaporated. Then shockwave rattled the inside of the Mini-Mane. The lights went out, and in the darkness I could feel Sunjay’s lungs expand. His first breath in a while. The lights snapped on and several things became clear to me.
Sunjay was breathing. I had almost killed him. My dad had saved him by ripping the staff out of my hands. And, of course, there wasn’t any dynamite
in the box of dynamite. Something more dangerous and explosive was there. The Sacred was on board, and it heard me in a moment of dire need.
THE CHOSEN OF THE SACRED
We didn’t finish the tournament. My dad offered me the Turbofizz but it only made me feel guilty. I hadn’t earned it. That night Dad and Buckshot stayed on the upper deck and we went below deck to sleep. Exhaustion crept over me like an invisible blanket. Sunjay coughed a bit as he drifted off to sleep, maybe the effects of almost suffocating to death from my attacks.
Between Sunjay’s coughing and my guilt, there was no way to sleep. I flipped through the Ascendant’s music player again and let my mind wander.
Dad brought the Sacred on board. Why hadn’t he told me? Was he worried that I would wake it up again? He must think we need it for something. Maybe I have to be close to it to use its powers. Who knows? I’m not going to make it a big thing though. Follow his lead. Focus on what matters, just like he did after you read the letter. What matters is saving Tabitha, staying focused on the right things.
Thud. My bed shifted. I looked up from the playlist and sitting there was Janice.
“Hey again,” I said. “I thought you would be mad at me.”
“I am,” she said. “That was hard to watch. How are you?”
“I’m worried about him,” I said, gesturing toward Sunjay fidgeting in his sleep. He coughed and his body shook.
“I think you healed him with your crazy alien powers. Now how are you?” she asked again. Her dark eyes met mine in the dim red light.
“Uh, I feel kind of like a guy that almost killed his best friend,” I said. “And doomed his other best friend to live with aliens. And my powers are totally unpredictable – I just wish they would either come back all the way or leave forever. And I’m about to land on Europa and I don’t know if we can stop the Ascendant. Stupid bull trampling through space.” The itch about the myth came back. Something was in it. “Yeah, that’s about how I am, Janice. Sorry I got you into this. You should have gotten into someone else’s luggage.”