Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  With a buzzing alarm gravity came back. For safety’s sake, it wasn’t a snap change, but it was enough to bring everyone quickly back towards the ground. Enough to make Sevil glide into a landing a few feet short of his target.

  “Sevil, stand at attention!” Collins barked.

  But it didn’t work, and he watched in horror as the man scrambled to his feet and launched himself at the Undying commander once more. The whole room watched the floaty gracelessness with which Sevil charged through half gravity. He reached out with both hands, one to lay palm down on the top of Phillips’ head and the other to drive a fist into his chin in a classic zero-G jaw breaker.

  Phillips clearly didn’t have his hand-to-hand cert, but he was fast and had plenty of warning. He grabbed both of his attacker’s hands, but the other’s momentum bounced him off his feet and they hit the ground still struggling. A moment later, three other players reached them, grabbing Sevil off Phillips and dragging him back.

  “Lieutenant, stand down!” Collins shouted as the man continued to struggle against his captors.

  Sevil glared at his flight leader, at Phillips, and then back again as he slowly mastered himself. “He was cheating, like they always—”

  “Not another word, Lieutenant!” Collins cut him off quickly.

  “Let him speak,” Phillips said cordially, having regained his feet.

  “Sir, I…” But Collins wasn’t sure how to proceed.

  He’d fought separatists on Wavereach, just before the Mauler attack, and something about Sevil had always struck him as familiar. Now he knew why. An invasion of monsters might have united everyone against a common foe, but the old grudges weren’t gone, just on hold.

  He had no idea how Sevil had gotten past the background checks, but the last thing he needed now was to lose a pilot to politics. Not when the carrier had broken away from the fleet to hunt down some vague and unknown threat. Not when he was ship-sharing with a squadron as toothless as the Undying.

  But Sevil had taken Collins’ tongue-tied moment to speak out again. “How’d you do it, you freak? Some kind of grav belt?”

  “I have an internal organ that fulfils a similar function,” Phillips admitted. “I had been trying to avoid using it but…” he shrugged sheepishly. “I got a little caught up in the moment. We’ll strike the point, of course.”

  “You think that makes it okay? You tax our families till we can barely eat, and for what? So you can get your insides replaced with a toy that lets you beat all us normals at ring-ball? You proud of yourself, big man?”

  “I am what I am.” Phillips spread his hands. “But I didn’t take your tax money, and I’d like very much for us to be able to play this game together. So you tell me, what we can do to fix this?”

  “Maybe you should go get your guts removed,” Sevil said. “I know a guy who’ll do it for free.”

  Phillips sighed and turned to address Collins. “I think the Lieutenant needs to take a break in his quarters until he’s had a chance to cool down, don’t you? I’ll step out of the match so we still have equal numbers.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Collins said.

  “Hang on, hang on,” Hanagan said. He was one of the men holding Sevil, and he’d been silent until now. “We can’t just sweep this one under the rug. He’s a bloody separatist!”

  “There’s no separatist movement on this ship,” Phillips said carefully. “We’re all just naval aviators here.”

  “Call it what you want, sir. But if you don’t report what just happened, I have to.”

  “Hanagan, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Phillips warned quietly.

  “I’m sorry, sir. You know I’d follow you anywhere, but the Navy’s gotta know where this guy stands. If command decides to drop him on his ass, then it’s the right call; if they decide he’s safe, then that’s good enough for me.”

  Phillips sighed. “You must do what you think is right. I’m sorry, Collins.”

  The Sabre met his eyes and nodded to show his understanding. “Me too.”

  ****

  Rease was performing again.

  The students in her martial arts class were being treated to her enthusiasm, her humour, and her positivity. She knew a lot about fighting, a surprising amount considering how little use hand-to-hand was against Maulers, but somehow that wasn’t as important as the way she carried herself. Like the best teachers, she made her students want to learn and made them proud of their achievements when they did. More importantly, she was such a celebrity that people were drawn to use their own limited free time to attend her classes.

  Her reputation for being an undefeatable sparring partner attracted spectators, who often later joined up. They told others, and soon marines and other qualified fighters were coming to face the great Luperca. Inevitably she would defeat them, but somehow, she even made it fun to lose. She was so humble and gracious in victory that, sooner or later, those who challenged her ended up joining the class as well.

  Before selecting her martial arts class for his little ping-pong experiment, Tarek had taken a look at the other courses she was running. As an embarked soldier, she had fewer operational responsibilities than most, but she was using every speck of her free time to teach an obscene number of optional classes. Besides martial arts, she taught firearms handling, first aid, basic mechanics, leadership fundamentals, and field tactics.

  In all of them, he’d seen her use the same techniques, people flocked to her classes because of her reputation, and stayed because of her apparently genuine interest in the skills and development of her students. Even when she was just touring the halls, she would deliver timely encouragement, a desperately needed extra pair of hands, or just a little humour during the monotony. Across the ship, she improved skills, dedication, and morale – and no one ever realised she was propping them up at her own expense.

  In fact, the mask had become so perfect that even Tarek had started to second guess himself. Maybe the Legend of the Luperca was all there was. Maybe she was tungsten to the core and didn’t crawl into a bottle, or break down inside, just because she lost a few friends. Maybe it wasn’t practiced or forced and she loved everything from volunteering for Kitchen Patrol, to seeing Tarek finally perfect that high kick. Maybe the broken soul he’d seen on Grimball was just a fiction he’d made up to tear down an actual hero.

  When they finally sparred together, he had his answer.

  It wasn’t a serious contest, just one of the many sessions where the class randomly paired off to put theory into practice. Rease gave him that winning smile and put her fists up.

  Tarek grabbed a card.

  He threw a punch destined to hit, and of course, she immediately tore the card from him, palming his strike away and retaliating. The chill pull of losing his cards was still jarring, but he’d experienced it several times now and knew it was coming. He summoned the deck back immediately and snatched the next one off the top.

  It saw him catch her counter-strike in an arm lock, but she stripped it before his hands even made contact. As the card blew away, she turned her strike into a feint and came at him with a low kick. Tarek was still snatching for the next future when her leg connected, throwing his knee out and dropping him into a crouch.

  He wouldn’t give up yet though. His head throbbed, but he forced the deck back into his mind and grabbed another card. As it bid, he rolled backwards and, still ending in a crouch, speared a kick up at gut level.

  The card was gone before his leg was halfway out, and she stepped around it with the blithe grace of a dancer. She caught his calf under one arm and thrust her free palm into his shoulder.

  Tarek grabbed for another card, but there weren’t any left. Her hand struck him solidly and, with only one leg for balance, he toppled backwards onto the mat. When a student’s head touches the floor, the round is over, and the sparrers must return to their positions.

  But Rease hadn’t let go of his leg, and the mask had slipped. He saw something he hadn’t seen before
– she was surprised, surprised and genuinely impressed.

  And her conscious mind was struggling to understand why.

  He felt a moment of pity for her plight. She had won, indeed she’d done so in a neat three moves, but what her brain was struggling to process was that she’d had to work for it. She’d fought longer battles with tougher marines, and yet her power, her true power, had never had to flex more than a cursory muscle. On some level, victory had never been in doubt. Until today.

  Her slip up had also revealed her trick. She used her power, not just for actions, but for how those actions would be viewed by others. Tarek had used his cards to convince people a few times before, Rease was simply doing the same thing much more aggressively. Where Tarek had found the future where people believed in his power, Rease found the future where she inspired, where she taught and bolstered, and where no one would ever catch her without her mask.

  “Good job,” Rease said, stepping back and offering him a hand up. “Obviously, every move has a counter, but that last kick would’ve caught a lot of people off guard.”

  The mask was back in place, enthusiastic, positive and encouraging, but now Tarek could feel the threads of her power attached to it. He could use a card, he could catch her when she thought no one was looking, and she was as bored, frustrated and stir-crazy as every other arcom pilot on the ship.

  But he didn’t. However curious he was about what she really felt, it wasn’t his right to invade her few moments of true reprieve. If he really wanted to help her, to help the raw and bitter human being he’d brushed with on Box Grid, that wasn’t the way to do it.

  “I thought I might have had you there,” Tarek said, accepting her hand up and moving back to his starting position. “You react fast though.”

  And he meant that, though perhaps not in the way she thought. Maybe she’d had her power longer, maybe it was because she did it subconsciously, but she was blisteringly fast. Even if he wasn’t reading them, it took him a second or so to pull a card and even more to call up a new deck. For her, reacting to changing futures seemed to be almost instantaneous, and the only sign it had taken any mental effort at all, was the slight furrow in her brow.

  She was the stronger seer, of that he had no doubt. But were there others? Was she incredibly fast, or was he just incredibly slow? With just the two data points, he couldn’t know, but he knew one thing: he would have to get better.

  He raised his fists, and readied his deck.

  ****

  Phillip’s had never attempted to actively use his Peer status to influence people. The truth was he’d received plenty of preferential treatment without ever having to say a word.

  But with the Sevil affair, he’d had too. He’d made it very clear to the marines and even the warden that no one was to enter the pilot’s cell without his consent. He’d suggested that anyone who did otherwise would find out exactly how far his connections stretched.

  For all that, it hadn’t worked. If Sevil had just been a separatist, things might have turned out as Hanagan imagined they would. Unfortunately, the separatist had committed a far worse crime than some political affiliation—he’d assaulted a Peer. There was a formal report stating he’d lifted a finger against one of the ruling class.

  In the end, Phillips didn’t even know who had come for him. After a flight, he’d checked in on the man to find the cell empty. The guards had no record of ever incarcerating him, let alone turning him over. His personal effects were gone from the barracks, his military record deleted, and on the entire ship the only thing the suggested 2nd Lieutenant Eugene Sevil had ever existed at all, was an empty Snowhawk with a scrubbed pilot plate in the hangar. They hadn’t even left the Cold Sabre emblem on the tail.

  Staring at that blank spacecraft, Phillips found that arcom pilot’s words somehow springing to mind: a lot of people died today, Commander. The fact that none of them were yours is something you should consider.

  ****

  Rease stepped into one of the observation posts with her usual bold swagger but found it empty – or at least empty of people. Sitting on one of the tables by the glass wall was a small package about a foot long and wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. A note was tucked under the string. ‘To Rease.’

  She’d received gifts before, of course, but few of her admirers had been anonymous. She’d received all sorts of things in her time, from arcom upgrades, to sleazy vouchers for sexual favours. Where the gift wasn’t totally out of line, she’d generally respond in the one way: let down the giver in a humorous, but public, way. Then later she’d give them back hope by discretely demonstrating that she’d kept the gift. Stringing people along was cruel, but shooting them down outright made them depressed and depressed soldiers caused deaths, deaths that were not always their own. Besides this wasn’t high school, if they wanted to try and woo her they’d get exactly what they deserved.

  But there was something about this unassuming box that put a chill through her. Something told her that this would be different, that she wouldn’t be ready for what she found.

  Pulling the door shut behind, her she tore open the package. Inside was a black protective case with a simple handle and two snaps to hold it shut. She knew immediately what it contained but she had to be sure.

  Gingerly she flicked the catches and flipped it open. Staring back at her from a nest of red felt were several silver tubes. Apart they were unremarkable, but assembled it would have made an elaborate silvered flute, an instrument so rare she knew of only one other on the ship.

  The Lieutenant’s lip curled.

  ****

  As a seer, Tarek had become uniquely unused to being caught by surprise. But it could happen. He did not even attempt to dodge the flute as it whipped through the air and struck him in the head with staggering force. Stumbling backwards into the wall of the passageway, he tried to make out his attacker through the auras that danced in his vision.

  “How fucking dare you,” Rease said coldly, slamming the flute down across her knee and bending it into a warped V. “You want to make nice with me, you want to fuck. Fine! Just ask, but none of this.” She threw the instrument as his feet. “You think you’re going to impress me by stalking my past? You think I’m secretly a damsel in distress who just needs a big strong man in her life!”

  “I wanted to get to know you,” Tarek answered. It was the most he could say without it turning into a snapped retort, and he kept his arms raised to ward off any further possible attacks.

  “You do know me,” she slapped her chest as though egging him on to attack her. “What you wanted is your fairy tale version! A me who fits your cute little world-view about girls and dresses and delicate musical instruments.” She spat at his feet. “Take your blow toy and get the fuck out of my life!”

  ****

  “Collins, got a sec?” Kelly called out as he left the locker room.

  Collins didn’t have a sec. When the CAG had described their situation as ‘on a razor’s edge’, he apparently intended that to mean: Razor would be on edge the entire time. He’d either been on patrol or alert-five since they’d arrived, and the last time he had been stood down for rest, he’d been interrupted by a scramble alert. When the scramble had turned out to be a false positive, he’d almost flipped his lid.

  But Kelly was the one Undying he had any time for. During their training sessions, he’d developed quite a bit of respect for the woman, even if he couldn’t understand her. She didn’t seem to fit the pilot type, she didn’t even seem to fit the military type: too generous and friendly without the arrogance of a pilot or the detachedness of a soldier. Despite that, she had a lot of talent, commitment and, more importantly, she seemed genuinely dedicated to escape the ‘defence is the best offence’ style Phillips had infected his squadron with.

  “If your question fits into the space of a meal, you can ask it,” Collins finally agreed, already heading for the mess hall.

  Kelly fell into step with him.

  “We
ll… I was sort of hoping we could do another sim run on that Mauler cruiser scenario. I want to try something.”

  Collins gave her a flat look.

  “Okay, okay,” she held her hands up defensively. “I know you’re busy. It was unfair to ask. Maybe when things are quieter…” she left it hanging.

  “Maybe,” Collins stressed. “For now, what’s this clever attack strategy you want to explore?”

  As he waited in the Junior Officers’ mess for his food, Kelly outlined her intention. She wanted to test using flares deployed from missiles, to create a decoy field for the flak guns. With them distracted, she reasoned, a bomber could make a torpedo attack from a longer distance and without removing the flak guns first.

  “It’s a nice idea,” Collins replied as he stuffed his mouth with mashed food… though now that he paused to look at it, he wasn’t sure what exactly it was. Shrugging he took another mouthful, swallowed and continued.

  “We actually did that, at Luyten’s Star. Had a frigate using decoy missiles ahead of its own torpedoes. In the end, we still had to take out the Mauler’s flak guns first, they just put too much crap into the air, and the torpedoes shred themselves.”

  Kelly was taking notes on a data slate. “But that frigate would’ve been coming from the Mauler front on. Bombers could get a better angle, where there were fewer guns or…” She paused to hammer in some more notes. “…or where the guns naturally have to cross fire, that way the flak clears out instead of coasting directly at the launch platform.”

  “Sure… that might work,” Collins said non-committedly. It certainly sounded like it had potential, but he was too tired to properly deconstruct it. He scraped at his empty plate and sighed. “I need to get some sleep, Kelly, but keep working on that.”