Crystal Horizon: A Short Prequel to Crystal Deception

by Doug J. Cooper

  Her frantic efforts attracted the attention of the two instructors, and her hope grew when they rushed to help. They hooked arms with Sid’s lifeless body and pulled with practiced efficiency. Swimming ahead, she lifted his suit and exposed the emergency mouthpiece tucked beneath the front collar.

  The moment he was near enough, she pried open his jaw, slipped the air tube into his mouth, and pinched his nose. Eyes closed, he drifted without moving, edging her toward panic. C’mon, Sid. She moved behind him, wrapped her arms around his chest, and tightened in a short, hard squeeze. Repeating the motion, she appealed to the instructors with her eyes. Help me.

  With her third squeeze, Sid convulsed. Bubbles burst from his mouth, and then his chest rose. He inhaled, then inhaled again. His eyes fluttered and she exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

  She studied his face as his eyes focused. Seeing her, he formed a broad grin around the mouthpiece. Relief washed through her when she understood he was out of danger.

  Resuscitated to the point where he could assist with his own rescue, Sid wrapped his arms around his suit and let the instructors help him down the tube and out of the maze. Cheryl followed.

  For the second time that day, her com activated when she emerged into the open water. “You’re the first team to beat the maze since I arrived at camp twenty years ago,” said Dooley. “Let’s see if you can continue your success in the weeks ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  Looking up, she watched Sid and the instructors disappear into the glistening diamonds of the sunlit lake’s surface. She followed, trying to decide if her partner was brilliant, crazy, or stupid.

  * * *

  Cheryl stopped in the doorway and scanned the briefing room, her stomach gurgling as it rebelled against the breakfast she’d gulped down just minutes earlier. About a dozen of the twenty or so chairs were occupied, and not seeing anyone she wanted to sit with, she sat in a chair at the end of a row. Over the next couple of minutes, stragglers scurried in to fill a few more seats. She checked the time. Six hundred hours on the mark.

  Jasmine, a camp instructor whose tough persona stood in contrast with her petite frame, strode through the door and marched to the front of the room. Sid slipped in like a shadow behind Jasmine and plopped into the chair next to Cheryl.

  “Good afternoon,” Cheryl said to him, keeping her eyes forward and wondering if her unveiled sarcasm pierced his consciousness.

  Dressed in the all-black, formfitting athletic suit popular with instructors, Jasmine began the briefing. “Today marks the first day of week three.” She crossed her arms behind her and made a show of studying the group. “You’ve been through a rotation of partners and a series of challenges. Six of you are clustered at the top with outstanding scores. That will change for at least four of you this morning.”

  Cheryl snuck a glance at Sid, who was slumped in his chair with his eyes closed. He seemed to be scowling. Checking her com for the team assignments, she learned they were partners for the day. They were also two of the six with top scores.

  “Will you be awake by the time this starts?” she whispered to him.

  His scowl turned to a smile, but his eyes remained closed.

  “Today’s task is simple, folks,” said Jasmine. “The theater has been staged with the layout of a space freighter. You’re to start from the ship’s command bridge and make your way to the engine room. The clock stops when you cross the engine room threshold. Shortest time wins.”

  A hand went up in front of Cheryl. It was Qi—a middling talent in this year’s class. “Do both team members have to cross the threshold, or is it just the first one across?”

  Good question. Cheryl looked at Jasmine.

  “Clock stops when the first one crosses.” Jasmine paused, adding drama to her next words. “Of course, three opposing teams will be spread throughout the ship, and they’ll be hell-bent on stopping you from getting there.”

  Looking down at her lecture panel, she said, “Check your com for your offense and defense schedules.”

  Cheryl scanned the room and counted eighteen people, not counting Jasmine, then looked at her com. “There are nine teams total. We’re on defense for runs one, two, and five,” she whispered to Sid. “We’re the last team up to make our scoring run.”

  Jasmine watched the group with an impassive expression, and Cheryl imagined her counting seconds in her head. After most of a minute, she resumed her instruction.

  “There’s an extra twist to our exercise this morning. Last week we upgraded the simulation capability inside the theater with a third generation SmartCrystal. This model supposedly brings artificial intelligence to a whole new level. The techs who installed it swear this AI crystal has a reasoning ability like that of a human.”

  She looked up at the ceiling the way one might when addressing a disembodied presence. “Three-gen, it’s your show.”

  The head and shoulders of a clean cut, forty year old man appeared as a life-like three dimensional image floating above Jasmine’s lecture panel. “Hello, everybody.” The three-gen smiled as it scanned the room with its eyes.

  Jasmine looked at the group. “The crystal will manage the competition today. You may ask it questions for the next twenty minutes.”

  Qi’s hand shot up and Jasmine acknowledged him. “The teams who go later will know what works on offense. Doesn’t that give them an advantage?”

  “I will be changing the ship’s layout after every challenge,” replied the crystal. “Strategies that are successful for one team may not be so for another, and may even prove detrimental to a winning outcome.”

  Hands raised across the room, and the next questions sought hints and information useful in the upcoming challenge. Not bad, Cheryl thought as the AI answered them all without divulging any secrets.

  The tempo of the questions slowed and she raised her hand. “You’ve surely analyzed probabilities and know the likely winners. Won’t you be tempted to tweak the competition so your prediction becomes prophecy?”

  “No,” said the crystal.

  A moment passed, and then Cheryl realized that was its complete answer. Before she could follow up, Jasmine clapped her hands. “Time’s up, people. Let’s move down the hall to staging.”

  Tables arrayed with munitions and gadgets lined the staging area outside the theater. Jasmine had explained that the armaments were set to dummy mode, but in the theater, the crystal would use projected image enhancements to make everything seem real.

  Cheryl picked up two Fleet-issued firearms and slapped one on each wrist, then hefted an energy cannon and returned it to the table. “What are you bringing?”

  Sid slapped a firearm on each wrist, the distinctive snap punctuating his words. “My secret weapon.”

  She eyed him, waiting for him to expand on the cryptic remark, but he acted like he didn’t notice. Moving to the end of the row of tables, he sat on a packing crate near the wall. She selected several items, distributed them among her pockets, and sat next to him. They watched their competition sort through the weapons, and then they waited for the action to begin.

  They were on defense in the first round, and Sid “killed” both members of a top-ranked team in under a minute. They weren’t on the schedule when the other top-ranked team took their turn, and one of them made it across the engine room threshold in six minutes and eleven seconds.

  Teams rotated in and out of the theater as the morning progressed, and Sid and Cheryl returned to their crate whenever they weren’t part of the action. As their time on offense approached, Cheryl’s nervous anticipation grew.

  “Want to hear something pathetic?” she asked, picking an imagined piece of lint off her sleeve. “Two years ago, I told my dad I wanted to be captain of a Fleet ship by the time I was thirty-five. He said it was impossible. No one had ever done it.”

  She caught Sid’s eye. “I want to win today to stay on track for that goal.”

  “You’re here to p
rove something to your dad?”

  “There’s no deep psychology, Dr. Freud,” she said, shaking her head. “My dad and I are great friends. It’s just that we bet a bottle of Scotch on the captain thing. He gloats so much when he wins.”

  “So you’re doing this for a bottle of Scotch?”

  “It depends. What kind?” She laughed and bumped her leg against his. “I’m having fun, Sid. This is where I want to be.”

  He nudged her leg in return. “No worries, then. We got this.”

  Their names were called, and Cheryl’s heart raced as she led the way into the theater. The spaceship was staged as a combination of real physical objects—floors, doors, consoles, and chairs—enhanced by three-dimensional projected images. The projections were sophisticated tricks of light that added life-like illusions of reality. The crystal would use image projection to update the set as events unfolded.

  Moving behind the ship’s main operations bench—the starting point for their run—she exhaled through pursed lips, seeking to dispel the tension from her body. “Six minutes ten wins it,” she said as she primed her wrist weapons.

  They lowered themselves to the deck and sat back against the ops bench, their shoulders touching, as they waited for the horn that would signal the start of the clock. Tilting sideways, Cheryl peered around the corner and surveyed the room.

  For their run, the command bridge was configured with a navigation bench and a communications bench positioned halfway to their first goal—either of the two passageways that led off the bridge. She eyed each passageway entrance in turn. They start us off pinned down, and our only way out is through choke points.

  She sat up straight and looked at Sid. “They’re waiting for us in those corridors.”

  “Yup,” said Sid, folding his hands in his lap and closing his eyes.

  She nudged him. “The horn is about to sound.”

  “We got this,” he said for the second time.

  Before she could respond, the clock started. Booop.

  Cheryl peeked around the corner. “I’m gonna try for the nav bench.”

  She rose up into a squat and poked her head out. Zwip. Zwip. Zwip. A fusillade of energy bolts—bright but harmless—passed all around her. Jerking back in reflex, she fell behind the ops bench and sprawled on the deck, her head landing on Sid’s thigh.

  “How’s it going?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “I’m confused.” She raised up on her elbows. “What are you doing?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t try for the passageways.”

  “What are we going to do, go through the walls?”

  He winked, then leaned forward and kissed her on the lips.

  Cheryl shoved his shoulder and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Seriously? That’s where your head’s at?”

  She rose to a crouch and looked him in the eye. “You should’ve asked first.” Shuffling to the corner of the ops bench, she used her com to look around the corner. “So where’s your secret weapon?”

  “I’m looking at her.”

  “Stop with the games, Sid.” She let her tone reflect her determination. “I told you this was important to me.”

  Digging into her weapons cache, she pulled out a red demolition disk and a blue smoke disk. She knew the wall behind her would be part of the outer hull on a real ship. All paths forward required that they move toward their opponents.

  “Right or left wall?”

  “Right.”

  She glanced over at him. “So I’m going alone?”

  He nodded. “There’s a team waiting in each of those passageways. If I stay here, they will too. For a while, anyway. That means it’s you against two. You can beat those odds.”

  With time short and options limited, her adrenaline-driven frenzy transitioned into a clock-slowing calm. I can do this.

  Setting the disks on the deck in front of her, she armed the smoke disk. She counted to five as she scanned the bridge, and then armed the demo disk. Sliding her arm in a smooth motion, she sent the smoke disk skimming across the deck, cheating it toward the passageway entrance on the right. A pop signaled its detonation, and as smoke clouded the far end of the command bridged, she thrust the demolition disk at the right wall.

  Boom. She’d pulled back and taken cover, but the noise and bright flash still caused her to blink. Peering around the edge of the ops bench, she squinted through the growing haze. The crystal had updated the projected image of the ship. A large, jagged hole was visible in the right wall.

  She rose, crouched at the edge of the bench, and readied for a dash. The acrid smell of smoke gave a surreal quality to the drama.

  “Good luck,” she heard as she pushed off and sprinted for the opening.

  Zwip. Zwip. Energy bolts landed all around her. Determined to get through the hole as fast as possible, she returned fire during her dash but didn’t take time to aim. The thickening smoke and Sid’s cover fire bought her the precious seconds she needed.

  When she was two body lengths from the right wall, she lifted her arms and dove head-first through the opening. Tucking a shoulder, she rolled once and let her momentum bring her to her feet. She understood from the narrow walls that she was in a side passageway. Engine room is down and aft. Dashing away from the bridge, she searched for a route to her goal.

  She approached a turn in the passageway and slowed. Sidling up to the corner, she bobbed her head forward and snapped back, then processed the memory of her glimpse. Empty. She looked back the way she’d come and saw no signs of pursuit. Nice work, Sid.

  Turning the corner, she stepped into an alcove that held a ladder leading down through a hole in the floor. She grasped the vertical rails with her hands, took a short hop, and pinched the outside of the rails with her feet, squeezing to control the speed of her fall.

  Craning her neck for signs of danger, she hit the lower deck with a solid thump and resumed her sprint aft. There are two people between here and the engine room. She knew that was a bold assumption and she should prepare for other scenarios, but with time growing short, restraint wasn’t a winning strategy.

  And for reasons she couldn’t explain, she wanted to live up to Sid’s confidence in her. Focus, she thought, scolding herself for letting her attention drift.

  Looking ahead, she saw the hallway had two branches exiting off to the right before dead-ending at a wall. She stopped at the corner of the first branch and snuck a peek. Clear. Peering down the side branch as she raced past, she perceived it to be a short connector that linked to a broad, brightly lit corridor.

  The second branch loomed and she edged up to the corner and stole a glimpse. It, too, was empty, and like the other it connected to the same lighted corridor. Moving into that second branch, she crept to the end and used her com to survey the scene.

  Looking right, she detected the arched opening for the first branch she’d passed. Her heart rate spiked when, to her left, she saw the distinctive shape of a muscular blast door. The engine room!

  Studying the layout in that direction, she identified a half-dozen cubbies and corners along its length. They’re waiting for me somewhere in those hidey-holes.

  With limited options, she scurried back to the first branch—the one farthest from the engine room—and moved to the end near the brightly lit corridor. Dropping to one knee, she retrieved her last demolition disk and smoke disk, set them on the deck, armed them, and retreated for cover.

  Time slowed as she waited for the detonation. Boom. Moving into the blast zone, she surveyed the damage through the thickening haze. The smoke disk, now resting in the middle of the broad corridor, hissed like an angry snake as it spewed dense fumes into the confined space.

  This either works or it doesn’t. With the opaque cloud as her protection, she stepped into the corridor, pressed her back against the wall, and waited.

  The thick smoke tested her. Tears streamed down her face and she blinked repeatedly in a vain attempt to soothe her stinging eyes. Her throat and lungs
burned from the harsh vapors. Lifting the front of her shirt over her nose and mouth, she fought the urge to cough.

  Resolute in this course of action, she counted seconds as she battled impatience, doubt, and pain. Voices! Drifting toward her from the direction of the engine room, she strained to hear the words.

  “Do you think they blew themselves up?” asked one. It sounded like Seth. They’d been partners in a challenge earlier in the week and she’d enjoyed the experience.

  “You go straight,” said the other. “I’ll swing across and come around from the back.”

  Cheryl smiled. Yes.

  She lifted her weapons and, taking deliberate strides down the hall, moved toward her opponents. Materializing from the cloud, she imagined herself as the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes.

  Zwip. She nodded at Seth as she hurried past him, his glowing suit signaling his death. Reaching the mouth of the second branch, she shot Seth’s partner before he even knew of a threat.

  Then her reflexes kicked in. Taking steps that lengthened with each pump of her arms, she sprinted down the hall. She didn’t know if more danger lurked ahead, but at this point it didn’t matter. This was her make-or-break play for the win.

  Reaching the blast door, she coded it open and stepped across the threshold. A display inside showed the elapsed time. Five minutes and eighteen seconds.

  She hadn’t just beaten the other team, she’d crushed them. Lifting her arms over her head, she shuffled her feet and swiveled her hips in an impromptu happy dance.

  Exhilarated, she wanted to share her joy. Exiting the engine room, she started a slow jog through the theater and back to the command bridge. Seth gave her a good-natured smile and they slapped hands as she passed.

  Reaching the bridge, she flashed a broad grin at Sid and performed an abbreviated happy dance. She sensed a somber mood lurking beneath his smile and stopped celebrating, letting her arms drop to her sides.

  He stepped to her, studied her face as he moved a wayward strand of hair off her forehead, then enveloped her in his arms. She stiffened as her rational thoughts battled her emotional desires. Don’t be stupid.