Randoms (19 page)

“Wait!” I called out, but Nayana waved a dismissive hand at me and again told Charles to accelerate. We began pulling away at top speed, and Steve was right behind us, firing all the while. We felt the low rumble as PPB fire chipped away at our shields. I returned fire, knowing it would do little good.

Nayana seemed to be noticing this as well. She looked at her readouts with concern. “You're hitting him, but the weapons aren't doing any damage.”

“It's why I told you to wait,” I said, exasperated. “The ion
emissions from our engines are watering down our PPBs. Once we started running, we gave Steve the advantage.”

Nayana's face darkened. She seemed to understand that she'd made a mistake—two mistakes, really. She'd given a bad order, and had then refused to listen when her crew was trying to advise her. She had just blown the sim for us. If Steve won, I could be happy for my friend, but there was no silver lining for Nayana, whose pride would take a serious beating.

I looked around the bridge. All three of the other humans looked tense and worried. They wanted to win, and they knew we were in a position that made winning almost impossible. Mi Sun kept turning around, glancing at the captain, waiting for her to come up with an idea to get us out of this. Nayana gripped the arms of her captain's chair, a bead of sweat visible on her temple.

This, I realized, was my big chance to show them my worth. I had more real space combat experience than any of them, and I'd proved I could handle the pressure. More than that, I had devised a new strategy to confound my enemies. What could I come up with now, in this strategy, to beat Steve and prove to the other Earth delegates that I was worth having around?

Then it came to me. Steve had the advantage because he was chasing us, so let's take that advantage away.

“Maybe we could turn this around on him,” I said. “He's directly behind us, so let's come to a full stop and then swing around to face him. He'll be at point-blank range, and he won't be ready for us. And if he tries to retreat, the weapons advantage will be ours.”

“Was that strategy in the reading?” Nayana asked, not doing
a convincing job of hiding her enthusiasm. I'd just offered her the lifeline she needed.

“No, I just thought of it,” I told her. “I can't promise it will work. Turning that quickly is going to make targeting difficult for a few seconds, but with a little luck, we'll take them out.”

“Let's try it.” She gave Charles a moment to enter the course, and when he was ready, she gave the order. “Now!”

We decelerated rapidly while swinging around hard, and the combination felt like falling and spinning simultaneously. I tried to get a lock on my weapons console while also trying not to lose my lunch. The maneuver had seemed like a good idea in theory, but the sudden movement of our ship made achieving a lock difficult. More than that, the instant we slowed, Steve executed evasive maneuvers, which moved my efforts to lock weapons from challenging to near impossible. My hands simply couldn't move quickly enough. Every time I tried to score a hit on his ship, it was already gone. He was moving too erratically, and the increased movement of our ship only made things worse.

“I can't get a lock.” I growled in frustration.

“Ish-hi ship is bearing down on us,” Mi Sun reported.

I looked up. “He's going to ram us.”

“Change course,” Nayana said.

Charles shook his head. “There's no time. He's going to overtake us.”

“Why would he do that?” Nayana demanded.

“He's trying to force us to change the energy frequency of our shields or to retreat,” I told her, “which will put us at an offensive disadvantage.”

“Why would we change our shield frequency?” she demanded.

“It was in the reading!” I told her, trying to stay patient.
“You don't use the same frequency for energy weapons and physical objects.”

“I fell asleep before I finished the assignment,” she said indignantly, “so I don't know if you're right or not.”

I was busy trying to hit my target and was in no mood for long explanations. “Just trust me.”

“Like I trusted you about stopping?” she asked.

Now it was my turn to blush. Okay, my plan hadn't worked out, but I'd been trying to fix her mistake. “Nayana, stop being stubborn. I know a few things about how these ships work.”

“What, from watching
Star Trek
?” she demanded.

“No, they don't work the way they do on
Star Trek
,” I snapped, “which you would know if you'd ever seen
Star Trek
. I know how they work here, in real life. Nayana, I want us to win. You need to listen to me.”

I thought she was going to demand I call her Captain, but she let that pass. “I think you're wrong about the shields. And in any case, if he rams us, he'll be destroyed too. It will be a draw and it gets him nothing. I say call his bluff and meet him head on, but just before he gets within three hundred miles, fire the dark-matter missile. Then fastest possible retreat.”

“That's a good call,” I said. And it was. Nayana had made a mess of things, but she was smart, and she'd put what she knew to good use. Three hundred miles was the cutoff for safe deployment. She wanted to maximize our chances of destroying him, and give us the minimum room we'd need to escape the damage of the blast.

“Thank you, Mr. Reynolds,” she said. I turned around just in time to catch it. The big smile. I guess I knew what it took to get on her good side after all.

Steve must have been anticipating that move, because just as he passed the four-hundred-mile barrier, he both sped up and radically shifted his approach. I fired the missile, but I was rushed. I knew I was way off the instant I let it go. The missile was lost.

Charles had begun to retreat the instant I fired, but Nayana's plan had depended on the enemy being destroyed. It was not, and it was gaining on us fast.

“You did that on purpose!” Nayana shouted at me.

“I'm doing the best with what we've got,” I said. I sent down the order to load another missile. If we were still alive in four minutes we could weigh our options then.

Steve's ship was looming closer now. I kept firing the PPBs, but his shields were holding. He sent some covering fire in our direction, but it was mostly for show. We could hear the distant boom of impacts, but our shields absorbed them easily.

“He'll change course,” she muttered. “He has to.”

“He's firing his missile!” Mi Sun shouted.

“He's less than two hundred miles away,” Nayana protested. “He'll destroy his own ship.”

“Evade!” I shouted at Charles, but he was waiting for the order from Nayana. It never came. Our visors filled with light, and our ship was destroyed. Steve had won for his team.

•   •   •

When we emerged from the sim, the Ish-hi were all clapping Steve on the shoulders and talking excitedly. The Rarels were looking about as glum as my teammates.

“Nicely done, Captain,” I told Steve.

“You practically handed it to him,” Nayana said. Her jaw was set and her eyes were red, like she was trying not to cry.
Nayana did not like to lose, and someone had to take the blame. In Nayana's world, it was not going to be her.

My efforts to get on her good side had clearly not worked. I wanted all of them to like me, but I wasn't going to take the blame for this. “You think I purposely missed hitting him?”

“I know you were trading messages. You said as much. And stopping and turning around was simply suicide.”

“I was trying to save us from your mess,” I snapped.

“Sorry, mate,” Steve said. “Didn't mean to make you look bad. Just going for a laugh.”

“It's not your fault,” I told him. “If Nayana had listened to me, we could have won it.”

“So you want to blame me?” she asked. “This is the thanks I get for being nice to you?”

“Telling me you wish you didn't have to be a jerk to me doesn't count as being nice.”

“Let's not be testy,” said Ms. Price, walking toward us with Dr. Roop. A three-dimensional holographic projection of our combat field was hovering above her data bracelet. “I had hoped to see Earth do better, but at least we held out until the end. No winner means no losers.”

“Think again,” said Ann, one of the Ish-hi females. “We won.”

“No you didn't,” Nayana said. “You were destroyed the same time we were.”

“Not true,” Dr. Roop told her. “The Ish-hi ship survived three microseconds longer than yours, and it was the cause of the destruction. The terms of the contest stipulated that the winner was the one who destroyed the last remaining enemy. Even though he destroyed his own vessel, Steve's ship met those conditions.”

“That's absurd,” said Ms. Price. “Scrap the game and start over. Let's have a real winner.”

“I'm afraid not, Ms. Price,” Dr. Roop said calmly. “But the initiates can come down here and compete any time they care to book suites. They can have as many rematches as they like over the coming year. I'm very impressed, Steve. Perhaps you and I could do some sims together on another day.”

“That'd be all right,” Steve said, clearly pleased with himself.

“I see we've misjudged you,” Jill, the other Ish-hi female, told Steve. “From now on, you may consider yourself a full member of our team.”

“Cheers, love, but I don't think so.” Steve walked over to where I was standing. “Next time, it will be four teams of three. The randoms against you lot, and we'll see who wins then.”

Ardov glowered at Tamret. “You mishandled the helm. Don't think I'm going to forget that.”

Tamret met his gaze. “I followed your orders exactly.”

“If you'd followed my orders, we'd have won,” Ardov said, taking a step toward Tamret.

Dr. Roop now moved toward them. “There's no harm done when everyone has learned something,” he said, his voice friendly, as though he hadn't noticed any tensions.

Ardov's ears shot back, and his fur seemed to puff. For a second I thought he was going to turn on Dr. Roop. Instead he gestured to Thiel and Semj, and the three of them walked off.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

O
ur last formal orientation for experience points was in the sparring room, and at Dr. Roop's advice, we all dressed appropriately. I had on basketball shorts, an old T-shirt, and Chuck Taylors. Mi Sun wore her white martial-arts uniform with, of course, a black belt. Charles wore a polo shirt and cotton shorts, both with the insignia from his private school back home. Nayana wore a pink tracksuit, and she looked only marginally more comfortable about all this than I did.

The sparring room was on the same basement level as the spaceflight sim suites. It looked a whole lot like a martial-arts sparring room on Earth, with padded walls and floors. It also had an attached control room from which you could watch the proceedings, but you couldn't see the control room from the sparring room. I presumed that was so that people who were fighting would not be self-conscious about audience reaction.

From inside the control room, Dr. Roop showed us how to work the console. “You can either spar with another being,” he said, “or the computer can use plasma-based field technology to create an artificial partner based on your specific level of fitness. The computer will also generate a protective field, which you can set anywhere from the maximum of level ten, which makes it more or less impossible to get hurt, to level one, in which you can get hurt, and serious injury, while unlikely, remains possible.
Some beings need the threat of real consequences to be at their best. Now, who wants to go first?”

“Can I volunteer to not go at all?” I asked.

His eyes widened. “I'd like everyone to sample the process. If it is not your strongest area, you do not need to pursue excellence in this field, but you never know until you try.”

“I'll go,” Mi Sun said.

“Good girl,” Ms. Price said, looking up from her endless note taking.

Mi Sun rewarded Ms. Price's enthusiasm by rolling her eyes.

Dr. Roop showed her how to program an artificial opponent, and she selected one that the computer gauged as being slightly superior to her. For protection, she selected level eight. “I need to feel something when I'm hit,” she said. “But I don't need to feel too much.”

I'd never seen Mi Sun fight before, and I had to admit I was impressed. Most of what I knew about martial arts came from Hong Kong movies, so I'd never really seen tae kwon do in action, but it was almost as much dance as fighting. Mi Sun would begin with these exaggerated postures, with her legs wide and her arms fixed, and each blow she struck or blocked looked like a choreographed movement, but she was quick and graceful and powerful, and I knew the sense of scripting was just an illusion produced by her skill. I did not much like Mi Sun, but I sure respected her. Her artificial opponent, which looked like a rectangular-headed mannequin made of blue light, was supposed to be a little bit better than she was, but it was quickly outclassed. Mi Sun lashed out with a seemingly endless stream of wide kicks. It got in a couple of glancing blows, which caused
a blue shimmer of light around Mi Sun as the force field kicked in, but the opponent was defeated in less than ninety seconds. As Mi Sun emerged from the fighting room, Ms. Price looked up, flashed her most convincing artificial smile, and went back to her notes.

Ardov volunteered to go next. Like the other Rarels, he wore a loose-fitting sleeveless robe thing that was tightly cinched at the waist and flared out with skirts to his knees. On Tamret it looked great. On Ardov it looked stupid. Actually it looked intimidating, but I told myself it looked stupid because that made me feel better.

I liked Ardov even less than Mi Sun, maybe less than anyone, anywhere, and I wanted to see him fail miserably. He was good, however—fast, strong, and unpredictable. His opponent was the same sort of rectangular-headed mannequin, and it was supposed to be 25 percent more skillful than Ardov, but he defeated it in under a minute with a series of kicks, elbow jabs, and sideways punches.

Steve went next, and that was also something wholly unexpected. Ish-hi apparently didn't dress much differently for exercise than they did for everything else: He wore what appeared to be his usual tunic. He did remove his sandals, however, and then bounded into the sparring room looking every bit the predator I had thought him to be the first time I'd seen him in my room. He and his artificial opponent were almost too fast to watch as he raced across the floor and up the walls. They lashed out with arms and legs and, in Steve's case, tail. Minus the web shooters, Steve had the Spider-Man skill set, but so did his opponent, and though he put up a serious fight, Steve lost after about ten minutes. He came out breathing hard and grin
ning his reptilian grin. “That was right fun,” he said. “I'm doing this every bloody day.”

I figured I should get it over with, and it was better to go after Steve, who would make any human appear lame by comparison. I chose an opponent at my level, and maximum force field, and stepped into the fighting room, which smelled of rubber and alien sweat.

Later Dr. Roop told me I could watch a replay of my fight to learn from my mistakes, but I sincerely hope I never have to see what happened in there. My artificial opponent and I faced off in the fighting style known as spastic playground rumble. He took a swing at me; I took a swing at him. We were both good at avoiding getting hit. In fact, I was better than I thought I should be. It had to be the skill points I'd put in agility.

After we'd been fighting for about five minutes, I was starting to get tired. Most playground fights I'd seen ended pretty quickly, and five minutes of continuous swinging, dodging, and moving turned out to be exhausting work. Finally I decided to let my opponent hit me. I wasn't planning on taking a dive, but I wanted to know what getting hit would feel like. That way I could measure how close in I was willing to move. It seemed like a smart idea at the time. My opponent took a swing, and it connected with my jaw. I didn't feel pain—the plasma field protected me from the worst of the punch—but I was suddenly on my back, looking up, and my HUD told me I'd lost the match.

When I went back to the control room, I saw Mi Sun trying not to laugh. Ardov was standing next to Tamret, whispering in her ear.

She looked at me and smiled sympathetically, as if to say it was all right with her if I was the worst fighter in the galaxy. That
didn't make me feel any better. When I stood next to Steve, he looked at me and cocked his head a little. “You're the distance guy. I'm for close-up.”

“Yeah, but your ship beat mine yesterday,” I said glumly.

“Good point, mate,” he agreed.

After we had each taken a turn sparring with an artificial opponent, Ardov asked about sparring with real opponents. “I'd like to see how that works.”

“That's probably a good idea,” Dr. Roop said. “Any volunteers?”

Ardov pointed at me. He flashed what I was sure he thought was an affable smile, but he just looked evil to me. “Let's go, [
monkey
] boy.”

“No thanks,” I said, holding up my hands, trying to act like it was no big deal.

“There are shields to keep you from getting too hurt,” he said. “Unless you're too much of a coward.”

“Everyone already knows you're a better fighter than I am,” I said, feeling my face get hot.

“Then I'll teach you a thing or two. You'll thank me later.”

Ms. Price stopped typing and glared at me. “You're making our species look bad. Get in there and fight him.”

I felt everything closing in on me. I was, to be honest, terrified at the idea of fighting Ardov, who I was sure had some trick in mind for making sure I got hurt, in spite of the plasma fields. The best-case scenario was that he absolutely humiliated me without actually putting me in the hospital. On the other hand, if I didn't fight him, I would look pathetic, and I would never live it down. I hated the idea of him smacking me around, but I realized that I didn't hate it as much as I hated having the other
humans, and Tamret, see that I was too afraid to face Ardov. I told myself that if he managed to hurt me in spite of the safety measures, the Confederation medical technology would make sure nothing serious happened. There was nothing to do but accept the challenge.

I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated just an instant. Tamret was staring at me, her expression pointed, like she was trying to tell me something. I knew she didn't want me to fight, and I knew she could see I had no choice. I saw something in her eyes I'd never seen before: fear.

“I'll fight him,” Mi Sun said, with the enthusiasm of someone who'd just agreed to empty the dishwasher.

Ardov looked at me. “If the [
monkey
] boy is too afraid, then why not? You didn't seem too helpless.”

I felt relief and fear in equal measures, and I kept my eyes down, not wanting to look at anyone, knowing I'd see pity on their faces. I couldn't help myself, though. I glanced up and Tamret was looking right at me, and I did not see pity. I saw relief.

Mi Sun and Ardov agreed to fight with the force field turned down to level two. Dr. Roop advised against it, but it became clear that he would not force them to do things his way, and Ardov insisted. Mi Sun merely shrugged like it didn't matter to her one way or the other.

They squared off, Ardov adopting a position with open hands, arms at shoulder level, bent at ninety degrees. He had one leg in front of the other. Mi Sun stood with her legs wide apart, her knees slightly bent, and her fists balled, her arms close to her body. And they began.

Mi Sun didn't waste any time. She launched a spinning kick
to Ardov's face, and it hit with a sharp thud. Blue plasma flashed as Ardov went reeling back. You see face kicks all the time in comic books, and sometimes in kung fu movies. In real life it's easier to see how much space the foot has to travel, but Mi Sun was fast and accurate and powerful.

“Yes!” I said.

I felt the eyes of all the other Rarels on me, including Tamret. I decided I would keep my opinions to myself.

Ardov wiped his face with the back of his hand. There was a small amount of blood dripping from his nose. He stepped in toward Mi Sun, crouched, and leaped at her. He hadn't leaped like that during his own match, and Mi Sun was caught off guard. He passed her in the air, and she lunged backward, but he reached out and managed to strike across her face with his forearm. She went down, her own nose bloody. Without the force field, that blow might have crushed her face.

“I believe I've seen enough,” Dr. Roop said. He signaled the two fighters via their data bracelets. “You've both done well. Let's end this before someone gets hurt.”

“It's just getting fun,” Ardov said.

“I'm fine.” Mi Sun's voice was troublingly distant. She was in some kind of zone, and I thought nothing anyone said was going to pull her out of it.

Ardov lashed out with another one of his flying arm sweeps, but this time Mi Sun was ready. She ducked under it and kicked Ardov in the back. He went face-first into one of the wall mats.

Mi Sun was not about to wait for him to regain his balance. She'd had a taste of his power and did not want to let him get the upper hand again. As soon as he bounced off the wall, she landed another kick to Ardov's face. He tried to move out of the
way, but her bare foot still clipped his chin. She then launched a series of quick jabs to his midsection. She stood in her wide stance and lashed six times in a row. Ardov was caught in the whirlwind of her assault and could not make his body respond. He had to take it, and his face contorted with pain and rage and frustration.

I thought Mi Sun had him, and I was breathless with excitement. I was ready to buy her a victory [
pizza
], but then Ardov somehow broke out of her hold, shoving her back so hard she stumbled and fell to the mats. Without stopping to catch his breath, he crouched and leaped like no human could, striking her, as she tried to rise, with an open hand under her jaw, sending her reeling back down. The force field sparked like a blue explosion. Mi Sun crab-walked back and leaped to her feet, quick and agile as though the blow hadn't fazed her, but when she opened her mouth, I could see that her teeth were covered with blood.

“Make them stop,” I said. “She's not getting enough protection.”

Dr. Roop was already signaling them before I began to speak. “That's enough,” he said. “I want you both to end to this.”

“Not yet,” Ardov said.

Mi Sun shook her head, stubbornly refusing to quit, but she didn't look right to me. Her eyes lacked focus. Her balance was off.

Even Ms. Price, who had stopped typing for once, looked on with concern.

“Why don't you raise the force-field level?” I asked.

“I can't tamper with the system once the match has begun,” Dr. Roop said. “The only thing I can do is cancel the program
entirely, but if they don't stop when I do that, they'll be fighting with no protection at all.”

“Right,” said Steve. “I'll go in there and make a convincing case for ending the match.”

Steve had only taken a couple of steps toward the door when Ardov spun around and kicked Mi Sun hard in the back. His foot struck hard and flat, and Mi Sun flew into the wall, face-first, connecting with a sickening slap. I thought the padding would be enough to protect her, and after she struck, she remained standing for a beat. Then she fell to the floor. Mi Sun's jaw was slack. Her eyes fluttered momentarily and then closed.

Ardov stood with his back to us, his head down, breathing heavily. Then he turned to face the control room, his mouth open in a sickly grin. “I win.”