"Expedition's End"

Leon sucked in a breath and tried to concentrate past the fact that beyond the boulder behind which he was currently crouched, three men with guns were trying very hard to make him dead. Three feet from his knees, the rocky dirt ended in a sheer drop - the verge of this island. Ten feet past that, the metal-ribbed canopy of the zeppelin Wednesday in Ghenna drifted. All Leon needed to do to avoid getting cornered and killed was jump onto the airship. Jump, not miss, grab one of the handgrips, and not get shot.

Gunfire rang out above him. Someone had climbed the ladder to Wednesday’s dorsal access hatch - and brought a rifle. Based on the person’s loose, wind-whipped brown hair, Leon decided it was Sarah. He knew that the thugs wouldn’t be more distracted than they were at that moment, and scrambled to his feet. The four feet of turf gave him a tiny running start to the jump, otherwise it would have been impossible to make. A few bullets hissed through the air as his feet left the ledge, but they went wide, likely because the shooter was more interested in not getting shot by Sarah than he was in killing Leon. They probably hit the airship’s canopy, but Leon knew that the self-sealing envelope would handle such small leaks.

Leon hit the zeppelin midway between its metal ribs, and swung his hands wide, scrambling to find one of the leather-strap handholds. He didn’t find any. The elastic surface cushioned most of the impact, but now Leon was sliding down the side of the cigar-shaped craft. Sliding down, falling -

Leon heard a blast, like a shot from a cannon, and found his fall arrested by a light mesh net. He was now swinging from a rope that hung out of one of Wednesday’s little used gun ports.  “Gotcha!” The voice was James’ - one of the man’s inventions had made itself useful, and none too soon. Leon breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t been looking forward to a fall of several miles.

Three minutes later, Leon dusted himself off as Wednesday moved to a safe distance from the island. James, the crew’s bulky, stoop-shouldered engineer and equipment man, busied himself by folding the net carefully and packing it back into the launcher while waiting for Leon to speak..

Sarah, dropping into the lower deck behind Leon, broke the silence. “So this is the place?” She arched an eyebrow in annoyance. Leon did not fail to notice for the hundredth time since Rim that she was the type who was far more attractive wearing just that sort of expression. It helped that the wind had thrown her usually tied-back hair into unrestrained chaos, and Leon liked her looks better with a little disorder about them.

“Why else would three unfriendly men with big guns be up there with no ride?” Leon gestured back to the flat-topped, jagged-bottomed island outside. “Someone found the Kinecrite first, and left his guard dogs chained to his treasure.”

Leon’s mind drifted for a moment back to Rim, where he’d paid a few coins to a self-described divining witch, asked a pointless question, and inadvertently found himself a new adventure. That was almost two months ago. Doubtless he’d just been given the same “fortune” as someone else, but that couldn’t be helped now.

“We could beat ‘em.” James’ voice and gesture to his net launcher snapped Leon back to the present. “I could make this fire blades, or acid, or - ”

Leon cut him off. “They’ve got the cave entrance fortified, and there might be more inside for all we know. Let’s try this my way first. It is after all my boat.”

“Wasn’t your way just landing on top and walking in, and didn’t we just try that?” Sarah folded her arms.

“My other way, then. Go tell Marcus to turn us around and bring us in from below.”

“Below?” Sarah asked, clearly uncertain what Leon had planned.

“Ever wonder why Wednesday has an access hatch on top?” Leon smirked.

James, always practical, responded to the rhetorical question literally. “To make cleaning the bird crap off easier?”

Leon put a palm to his face. “Well... originally, yeah. But I prefer to think that it was designed for what I have planned.”

Sarah suppressed a smile. She always did enjoy watching Leon’s flair for the dramatic run headlong into reality. “Don’t let him do anything stupid before I get back, James.”

Leon watched the woman climb the ladder up one level and listened to her footsteps echo toward the pilot’s station. After a moment, he returned to the task at hand. “So. Do we have a grappling hook?”

James thought for a moment. “...Not as such, no. But...” He vanished into the workshop/engine room at the back of the undercarriage, returning after a moment’s loud rummaging with a simple bar of metal, studded with conical rivets. “I’ve been working on this one for a while now, should work as a grappling hook.” James tied a rope to the ring on one end and tossed it at the floor. On impact, the device made a clank as loud as a gunshot, and the rivets exploded out into curved spikes.

“It’ll do, James.” Leon adjusted the empty bag slung over his shoulder and climbed up one deck, carrying James’ spring-loaded device. He was afraid to ask what its original planned use was.

Sarah was waiting by the access ladder. “I’m coming with you this time.” She was standing so that Leon couldn’t get past her to the ladder, looking quite serious. That was another look that complemented her, and Leon couldn’t help but smile back.

“When you put it that way, how can I refuse?” Leon handed her the bag. “I’ll go first, follow right behind me.”

Sarah frowned, probably wondering why convincing Leon was always so easy, but stepped aside to let the man climb first.

As Leon opened the hatch at the top of the access ladder, the zeppelin was just slowing to a stop about a dozen feet below the island’s irregular underside. He mentally applauded Marcus’s skill in getting the zeppelin so close without actually colliding with the rocks.

Then, of course, the wind picked up, reminding Leon that if Wednesday stayed here too long, a fluke updraft could smash the craft. He scanned the rocks for a moment, and found what he was looking for - an exposed cave entrance. Bracing himself against the open hatch, Leon swung the hook, and missed the opening. Only then did he realize that the hooked bar could tear the zeppelin’s envelope -

Leon sighed in relief as the bar clanged onto one of the metal ribs. Winding it back, he tried again, and this time the hooked bar disappeared into the hole in the rock. Leon tugged on the rope, and it held.

“I’m going up. Hold onto this.” Leon yelled down to Sarah, dropping the coil into the hatch and starting up.

Climbing barehanded on rope was harder than Leon remembered. Perhaps, he groused on the way up, his short, wiry frame had picked up a little cargo around the midsection since the last time he’d had to pull a stunt like this. Even so, with no more injury than blisters and sore arms, he made it into the cave. Soon Sarah joined him, looking far less troubled by the climb.

“So.” She asked after a moment. “How are we going to get back?”

Leon peered down at the zeppelin, already moving off for safety. “I hadn’t thought about it... Hmm.”

Sarah groaned. “Leon, please, if I ever ask to go with you on one of your half-baked - ”

“I know. Don’t let you come. But how am I supposed to say no to you?” Leon smiled again. “Besides, each time you worry we manage just fine. Now, let’s focus. First, let’s get the crystals. Then, you can have my hide about getting back aboard Wednesday.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “All right.” Something occurred to her, then. “What about the pickaxes?”

Leon winced, realizing that neither of them had thought to carry the pair of pickaxes that they’d bought just for this expedition. “We’ll have to make do. Come on.” Leon fiddled with the object strapped to his wrist - another of James’ inventions - and soon a blue-white light shined forth from its glass face. He raised his wrist toward the darkness beyond and started climbing upward along the cave’s slope.

Sarah shook her head, but followed. Leon was right, she knew - they always seemed to figure something out.

The cave stayed tall and wide enough to walk in all the way up to their goal - a high-domed cavern at the island’s center. A dozen or more other tunnels branched off from it in all directions, including up - in one of these upward tunnels, Leon noted, someone had fixed a rope ladder to the rock.

And of course there were the crystals. Translucent, glowing blue-and-white spires of Kinecrite seemed to sprout up from the cavern floor, stretching toward the roof two dozen meters above. Some of the crystals were twice as tall as Leon, and as big around. Leon’s eyes widened, as did his grin. Even the thumbnail-sized piece of Kinecrite in his wrist light was quite expensive. This island housed a fortune. No, several fortunes.

“Sarah...” He turned back to look at her.

“Yeah, Leon?” From the woman’s expression, she’d come to the same conclusion as Leon had.

“We’re gonna need a bigger bag.”

“I’ll settle with filling this one, Leon.” Sarah dropped the bag. “Let’s hurry up before your thugs up top decide to come down for a look.”

“Good point.” Leon cast about for something to break the crystals with. Kinecrite was hard, but brittle, so any old heavy object should do the trick. He spied a loose rock about the size of his foot near the wall. Obtaining it, he headed for the largest spire of glowing crystal, watching his reflection in its lustrous surface seem to advance toward him. Selling that crystal alone would be enough for Leon to buy himself a city -

“Leon. No. Smaller piece.” Sarah put her hands on his shoulders and spun him to face a cluster of more manageable crystals, suppressing a smile.

“Okay, okay.” Leon heaved a disappointed sigh, though a part of him knew he’d never break that crystal loose - even if he did, they had no way of bringing it with them. With a forlorn look at the huge central crystals, Leon started working on the indicated set.

Sarah, meanwhile, found a rock of her own and carefully tapped a handful of finger-sized crystals out of the floor. As soon as they were all free, she moved to another cluster, working far more quietly and efficiently than Leon himself.

In twenty minutes the pair had filled their bag with the glowing crystals. “Okay.” Sarah glared at Leon. “Now, have you figured out how we get out?”

“Not yet. Let’s get to our exit first.“ Leon spun a full circle, and realized that he’d forgotten which cave they’d come in through.

“Umm, Leon?” Sarah sounded uncertain.

“You don’t remember which one we came in either, do you?” Leon looked to her, smile drooping.

“They all look the same.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re lost.” Sarah’s tone indicated that she was mentally kicking herself for the oversight.

“Looks that way. Pick a cave, any cave, my dear.” Leon decided not to about it too much - after all, the thugs guarding this treasure trove still didn’t know they were here, and Wednesday in Ghenna could wait a little while.

Sarah stood for a moment, then pointed to a tunnel. “This one should - ” Sarah was interrupted by the echoing sound of gunshots, followed by a ricochet from uncomfortably close to her feet and echoing shouts from above. Apparently, the guards had noticed Leon and Sarah, and they didn’t seem interested in taking prisoners.

Leon wasted no time sprinting for the tunnel she indicated, pulling Sarah (and the bag of Kinecrite) along by the elbow. “Let’s hope you’re right, then.” Leon gasped out, as soon as the two were around a bend.

“Leon, I wasn’t.” Sarah set down the bag and pulled her Judicator from its holster. “This is a dead end.”

Leon saw that she was right. The cavern continued - but it continued vertically down. Without so much as rope, they had no hope of climbing that.

Leon likewise drew his Holdout. It was a lightweight little thing, extremely pitiful-looking next to Sarah’s large-caliber revolver - but it had more bullets.

“Leon, any thoughts?” Sarah asked, tiredly, as the sounds of pursuit drew closer. From the sound of it, the men knew that this wasn’t a valid escape path.

“Only that I think my father would be proud to see me dying with a gun in one hand and a pretty woman in the other, Sarah.”

Despite the situation, she smirked a little at this. “No clever way out?” The men were close now. They had perhaps twenty seconds.

Leon tried to remember what the thugs were armed with. Millitary-grade Longjacks, if memory served - devastating close-combat repeaters. They were outgunned horribly, unless they could manage a diversion. If only James were -

“Wait!” Leon grabbed a spherical brass object about the size of a human eyeball out of his coat pocket. A single red-glass button protruded from its surface. “James to the rescue.”

“What is it?” Sarah sounded hopeful.

“No idea. Wasn’t listening when he explained.” Leon heard footsteps in addition to shouting now. He estimated how close they were, and wound up to bounce the object off the far wall and around the bend.

Sarah’s shoulders drooped in defeated exasperation. “Worth a shot.”

Leon shot her a sidelong grin, depressed the object’s button, and made his throw.

The men noticed it. One of them shouted out danger, and they stopped, probably expecting the metal marble to explode, or do something nefarious. From the sound, it didn’t.

“Idiot. It’s just a bearing.” This gruff voice must have been the trio’s leader. Leon’s heart fell.

“Guess not.” Sarah sighed.

Leon guessed by the sound that the leader had retrieved the object, and was holding it up to show his comrades. “Look!” The leader’s voice snapped. “It’s nothing but - ”

The mechanical, high-pitched whine of clockwork started just before his scream. There was a sound not unlike that which Leon remembered from a meat-packing plant in Rim - the sound of saw teeth meeting flesh. The screams lasted for a long time - Leon counted thirty-four seconds before the man was finally silent, and no other noise issued forth from around the bend.

Sarah looked green in the light from Leon’s wristpiece. “James to the rescue, eh?” She sat down weakly.

Leon peeked around the corner after the silence persisted for several seconds. He saw nothing at first, but a lump in the floor soon resolved itself into the prone form of a large man, heavily lacerated and leaking a puddle of dark blood. The man’s compatriots were gone, probably fled. Also missing was the sphere - and Leon was glad for that. He didn’t want to get anywhere near it now, and shuddered to think of it having been in his pocket.

Leon heard Sarah stand, and turned to face her. “It’s clear. Let’s get out of here before they realize we only had one, hmm?”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah. Remind me to have a chat with James when we’re away.”

“As long as your chat doesn’t involve large-caliber guns being pointed at my engineer.” Leon countered.

“Okay, fine. What’s your stance on crowbars?” Sarah mimicked a two-handed swinging motion as the two moved.

Leon rolled his eyes, shook his head in amusement, and escorted Sarah and her bag full of Kinecrite back toward the main cavern.

With the other two guards likely cowering above, afraid that Leon had more of James’ brass spheres, Leon and Sarah eventually found the right passage, and when they got to its mouth they found James there, goggles pushed up to his forehead and a bag at his feet.

“James!” Leon greeted him with a strange look. “About that little brass ball thing...”

“How did you get up here?” Sarah interrupted Leon, with an apologetic glance at him after the fact.

“Same way you did.”

“Any thoughts as to how we get down, then?” Sarah asked expectantly.

“That’s why I’m up here. I expected that Leon left without considering the return trip...”

“Guilty.” Leon bowed sweepingly. “About that brass ball...”

James continued smoothly, ignoring Leon’s attempt to change the subject. “...So I grabbed three of the escape harnesses and climbed up here.” James kicked open his bag, revealing the three harnesses inside. Each harness attached to a clockwork contraption on the back and a trio of folded, metal-and-leather wings.

“Good thinking, James.” Leon grabbed one pack.

“It’s what you pay me for, boss.” James replied, and started putting on one of the harnesses himself. “I’ll go first, and get my net launcher ready.” James strapped on the device and stepped toward the hole. “Marcus is circling a few hundred feet below. Plenty of room to maneuver.”

“No confidence in my abilities, James.” Leon nevertheless smiled. “Now about the little - ”

But James had already jumped. Above the sound of the wind, Sarah and Leon heard the whine of the slow-fall rotors on his escape harness. Leon imagined James steering through the air toward the ovoid canopy of Wednesday.

“If James had confidence in your ability to save your own life, you’d be a red stain somewhere in the Wastes right now.”

“I don’t think so, my dear.” Leon waved a finger. “I might still be falling. And I’m fairly sure I merit at least a crater.”

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Right. See you on Wednesday, Leon.” She leaned in to plant a brief kiss on his cheek before jumping out with the bag of crystals.

Leon stood at the edge of the hole for a moment, rolling up the grappling line, a wisp of a smile on his face. After a long moment of leaning out over the edge, watching Sarah’s escape harnesses pinwheel toward the zeppelin, and watching her land smoothly on its envelope, Leon leaned out over the edge, took a deep breath, and followed her down.

"Silent Fireworks"

As soon as we cleared McHenry’s launch bay, my gun whined to full charge and the computer started tagging targets. My canopy highlighted twelve tiny, moving points of light against the crowded starfield - Collective battlecruisers, according to the readouts. The comm bud in my ear crackled with orders barked between the ships of our task force, but I heard this only as background noise - I knew that I’d receive targets from Livingston as soon as we were in range.

Then the stars winked out in front of me: the canopy was hiding them, to reduce the number of things wheeling around in my view. Supposedly, this was to cut down on disorientation. I cracked my knuckles expectantly, and gripped the gun controls.

Behind us, McHenry fired a salvo. I would not have known for several seconds if it were not for the comm chatter and the displays - not until the swarm of rockets passed my gunship. There was no sound, only a hundred flashes of strobing orange chemical-booster fire, quickly dwindling toward the enemy. I swiveled my gun to point backward, and watched for a moment as the ship’s ten-centimeter railguns fired. You couldn’t see them doing much of anything but oscillating, but I imagined the glorious racket that echoed inside the ship, the deafening hum of the accelerators, the hiss of coolant, and the metallic pounding of the loaders. The metal slugs, though fired after the rockets, would be the first armament to reach the enemy - unless the Collective’s computers predicted the fire pattern and the ships maneuvered out of danger. My console sprouted a number of narrow red cones - enemy railgun fire patterns, as predicted by McHenry’s sensors. Going into one of those usually meant death.

“Look sharp boys, Cutters inbound!” Livingston tagged the enemy line in the computer, and I swiveled my gun to face them. Kamarov, in the other turret, was probably doing the same. Livingston had tagged the first squad as our responsibility. As I looked, more cutter squads were tagged by the other gunships. The range ticker next to the enemy group counted down, and I waited, thumbs on my triggers, for them to come into range. More orange flashes arced past my canopy as McHenry fired another salvo of rockets, but I didn’t let this distract me.

Just before the range indicator went green, I depressed both triggers. I knew that a gunship’s light railguns had no real range limit, but that shots fired from too far wouldn’t require any amount of skill to dodge. The capacitors’ whine switched to a modulated hum punctuaded by rhythmic thuds, and the whole gunship vibrated. Kamarov fired a second after I did, his shots tracing an arc tight on one side of the cutters where mine tried to pierce the formation’s heart. It was a common trick - my shots would make the formation break, and he was trying to catch some of them as they evaded.

Sure enough, the group split. There was a white flash, and Kamarov whooped into the comm - the trick had worked. I tried to line up another burst of fire, but Livingston chose that moment to throw the gunship into a wild maneuver, circling back toward McHenry.

I took a quick glance at the console. dozens of cubic kilometers of vacuum around us buzzed with the maneuvers and weapons fire of a hundred gunships and four times our number in enemy cutters.

Behind the Cutters, a cloud of larger, slower Sweepers was advancing toward the dogfight, but they would not be a factor for almost two minutes - plenty of time to deal with the lighter craft. Beyond them, the enemy’s battlecruisers were avoiding fire but not advancing or retreating. McHenry and the rest of the task force were doing the same thing, behind our line.

The computer had picked out all the cutters in the squad, most of which had changed course and angled toward us. Little more than rockets with pilots and weaponized plasma torches, Cutters were agile and quick but had to get in very close to score hits. They were devastatingly effective, cheap, and numerous - just like everything else the Collective built. I lined up the leader, then pulled my aim off to one side before firing. As soon as I fired, he dodged - almost right into the shot. I smiled, though I’d missed. The best cutter pilots were almost impossible to hit, and could cooperatively shred gunships easily, but this set was twitchy, probably green. Easy kills. We just had to avoid making mistakes.

As if to confirm my observation, Kamarov whooped, signalling another kill. I lined up the shot again, this time starting wide. As the burst was firing, I pulled the gun into line with the lead cutter. This time, I got him. His compatriots swerved wide to avoid the shrapnel cloud.

Livingston swore into the comm, and again the gunship twisted around in space. Had I been able to see the stars, their twisting and shifting might have been nauseating. “Nine, watch your fire arcs. You just about got us.”

The offending gunner offered a quick apology, and the incident was forgotten. The chances of friendly fire in this battle were high - the furball was just too crowded. Trying not to think about it, I turned the gun towards the next Cutter -

Too late. Livingston hit the thrusters just as the Cutter flashed by, and its plasma torch bit into empty space only a few dozen meters from my canopy. “Mason!” Livingston snapped at me. “Pay attention.” Had that been a more experienced Cutter pilot, the gunship probably would have been cut in two, and three of us would be dead.

“Sorry.” I spun the gun around, and fired at the Cutter’s retreating engine flare. I wasn’t really expecting to land a hit, but the small craft’s boosters flashed and went dark. Just to be sure, I used my next salvo to finish him off. Kamarov whooped again, though I didn’t see his kill.

Somewhere on the other side of the battle, a reactor flared into critical and went nova. I didn’t bother checking which side had just lost a ship - for a gunship crew, the far side of the battle might as well be the far side of the galaxy.

I whirled my gun again, lining up a lone Cutter. My ears throbbed with the gun’s hum and shuddering, and the other pilot weaved - right into Kamarov’s spread. The original eight were now down to two - and they were retreating. I glanced again at the console. The Cutter wave had taken the usual eight to ten percent toll on the gunship cloud, but an inordinately large number - over half - of their number had died to accomplish this. As I watched, they regrouped with the tougher, slower Sweepers. They’d be back, escorting their big brothers, but we had a moment of respite.

“Mason, you’re slow today. My kill count is in no danger.” Kamarov referred our running kill count competition. He was only a few dozen more kills ahead of me, but this battle was helping his lead.

“Yeah. Enjoy it while you can.” I shot back.

“Cut the chatter.” Livingston chided us, then went back to talking into his comm. Having little else to do, I listened in. “...Requesting suppressive fire support at the following coordinates - ” He punched a button, and the computer digitized the coordinates intended and spat them over the channel, a sound not unlike the grinding of heavy machinery sped up to triple speed. “Repeat, requesting suppressive fire support at the supplied coordinates. If we get it, we should be able to break through...”

At these words, my thudding heartbeat picked up the pace, courtesy of a fresh surge of adrenaline. Did Livingston really think we might break through? I’d been in a dozen battles over the last nine months, some larger than this and some smaller, but never had I seen a significant number of Confederate gunships break through the enemy line. I’d seen Collective craft break our line though, at Regency. The rout at Regency was well-known. Usually, the light craft pounded each other mercilessly in between while their big brothers slugged it from a distance, and the loser was the side to retreat first. It was exceedingly rare for fleet commanders to so badly mismanage their position that their capital ships were being strafed by unopposed - after all, strike craft like gunships and Cutters are cheap, and losing hundreds is still better than losing one cruiser. Defending one’s home ship was always more important to us gunship crews than blowing up the other guy’s. Even so, all gunships carried a special package, just in case a breakthrough happened. We hadn’t yet had a chance to use ours.

A glance at the console told me Livingston was right. The Sweepers were still a ways off, and surrounded by the remaining Cutters - and though they outnumbered us overall, there was a thin spot in their cloud of ships, and that thin spot was dead ahead.

Someone on McHenry replied on the comm, something curt, brief. Livingston did not spout a string of profanity. That had to mean that McHenry’s light guns were going to give us a volley. I swiveled my gun to the forward position, and imagined Livingston in the cockpit, fingers drumming on the thruster controls, waiting for the shots to come.

The only thing that told me that McHenry had fired a massive cloud of metal right past us was the instruments - that, and Livingston’s unnecessary shout for us to “hang on.” Even with the dampers, the sudden burst of speed pushed me back into my chair - without them, all three of us would be nothing but bloody goo in the back of the gunship. The range between us and the enemy closed rapidly - and they saw us coming. Cutters and sweepers alike cut wide in all directions, probably trying to get out of the red cone that McHenry had put on their console displays.

Most weren’t fast enough. McHenry’s light guns could fire the same size projectiles my gun could, only more of them, and faster. The sky in front of the gunship flashed five, six, seven times, each marking the death of a Sweeper and its crew of five. The lesser flashes designating the deaths of Cutters were too numerous to count.

Eight other gunships were right behind us as Livingston ran us right for the new gap in the enemy line. I knew the remaining ships would close it fast, and started lining up the nearest surviving Sweeper.

Then one of the red cones on the display swiveled to encompass the gap. Livingston swore again, and cut a hard turn. The enemy had turned railguns of their own on the growing problem, and it was suicide to fly in the red cones. “So close.”

Abstractedly, I noticed that one of our gunships didn’t make it out of danger in time. Shredded by railgun fire, its fuel tank made a brief orange-yellow fireball before it ran out of oxygen.

I sighed, disappointed, and let loose a salvo at the Sweeper I’d lined up. I scored hits, but the tough ship shrugged them off.

But we caught a break.

There was a sudden nova flash from the enemy line, and the red cone faded off the screen. The battlecruiser covering the gap had been destroyed before the gap could close.

“Though the breach!” Livingston practically screamed into the comm. “Everybody through!” I took another shot at the Sweeper, just before Livingston hit the thrusters again. I didn’t find out if that shot had scored. Five seconds of hard acceleration later, we punched through - and behind us, ten other gunships had followed. The comms echoed with cheers and the chatter of the remaining gunships coordinating to reposition to cover our section of the furball.

The cheers only lasted until space around us filled with moving red cones. The enemy ships were firing wildly, hoping to pick us off before we got in close. It was a tense minute as Livingston weaved us closer to the nearest battlecruiser, a long, flattened craft studded with protruding weapon towers, but we survived. Two of the gunships didn’t.

We ran along the ship’s long axis for a brief moment, both turrets firing indiscriminately and pointlessly at anything we thought looked fragile, as Livingston armed our breakthrough package. The other gunships flew interference, keeping three squads of reserve Cutters at bay until we had delivered our payload. The battlecruiser’s light guns were firing too, but they were deigned to support light craft from a distance, and were no threat at this range. I doubted the Collective captain knew what was about to happen to his ship - if he did, there’d be more panic in the efforts to stop us. I suspected he thought all we had to hit him with was the railguns, which if true would make us little more than a nuisance. Cutters, of course, had no special weapon to combat capital ships - their plasma torches were just as effective against armored battleships as they were gunships. Our railguns weren’t.

“All gunships, I’m gonna pull the pin. Get clear, head for the next target.” Livingston warned. All eight remaining gunships acknowledged, hard-burning away from us toward the next battlecruiser. The remaining Cutters arced in. I scattered some with my railgun, but the swarm was too spread out for me to really slow them down.

Just as the Cutters were closing in, Livingston flipped the gunship’s nose at a sharp angle and boosted us away from the battlecruiser, giving us as much speed as possible before he flipped what I imagined to be a big red switch on his controls. There was a high-pitched whine, then a bass thud, and everything in the gunship went dark. The stars outside my canopy came back. I smiled, knowing that the EMP had done just that to the pursuing Cutters, and hopefully to the battlecruiser we were moving away from. The gunship and cutters would be able to drift until they could restart - but the larger ship would be shredded by McHenry and the other Confederate ships.

“We get it?” I shouted over my shoulder down the connecting passage. Comms were inoperable, of course.

“Think so.” Livingston shouted back.

I loosened my harness, tossed away my headset, and twisted around in my chair to look back toward the battlecruiser. I could see only a blocky chunk of black, where the stars were obscured. There were no running lights, no engine trails, and no rocket flares. The battlecruiser was powerless, drifting. “We got it all right. Kamarov, ready for the good part?” I felt accomplished, even though the credit belonged to Livingston. I reflected that it was too bad that the pilot’s canopy was up front, and he wouldn’t get to see his handiwork.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Mason.” Kamarov shouted back.

It was just then that the black chunk of missing stars sprouted a tight cluster of bright orange lights, fires that quickly winked out. Fires in space never last long, just until the oxygen feeding them is vented or consumed. Based on the timing, one of the Confederate ships had started firing its railguns just as we’d popped our EMP.

None of us spoke. Dozens of railgun hits lit the ship’s sides before the slower rockets caught up. The Collective ship took hits from the first salvo all along its length, explosions burrowing deeper into its unprotected skin, but it didn’t explode into a reactor flare - one needed to have a working reactor for that. I was grateful, as we were close enough for such a flare to bake us with gamma rays.

The flashes, devoid of all sound, reminded me of the fireworks show I’d seen when I was a child: with distant fireworks, there were flashes, but they were so far off that the sound took several seconds to reach you. I found myself expecting the booms of fireworks to rumble past my ears at any moment. At the realization, I smiled. I’d be waiting forever in vain to hear the triumphant booms and crackles of this show. Still, it wasn’t without its own grim beauty.

Finally, one of the shots hit the battlecruiser’s magazine, or something equally explosive. The fireball lasted only tenths of a second, but it was enough to melt metal and tear the ship in half. Silhouetted in the red glow of cooling metal, I saw clouds of black specks sucked out of both halves, and into space, and I wondered fleetingly how many people were just killed. I immediately pushed the thought aside. It’s not that I thought nothing of the lives lost in war, but I knew that given the opportunity, the men and women who’d just died would do the same to us, to McHenry’s crew, gleefully. Regency had taught us to give no quarter, for we would receive none.

“Livingston?”

“Yeah, Kamarov?”

“Does that mean Mason and I have to beat your score now?”

All three of us laughed in the darkness.

"Virtual"

William had been waiting for this day for almost a week, and the conditions couldn’t be better: his connection was good, and his whole evening was free. After checking the rig’s status indicators, William navigated the cluttered floor sat down in his high-backed gaming chair. Homework could wait, he decided, until after the challenge. With a deep breath, he put on the cable-tethered helmet, and flipped the opaque visor closed. There was a hiss, and a click, and -

The screen inside the visor came on. A yellow tunnel spiraled past William’s vision rapidly, slowly changing hue toward green. At about the color of sour apple candy, the tunnel vanished, and William was standing in the cobbled courtyard of a medieval-style castle. He recognized the place immediately as Grozun Keep - his home in the game world. The late summer breeze ruffled his now shoulder-length blond hair, and stirred his new full beard. The fortress had seen better days - a few of the buildings in the enclosure were burned to foundations, and the paving stones were shattered from impacts, but it was still mostly intact. Without looking, William knew that in the game, he was an adult: tall, and imposing.

“Commander Wakefield, good to see you again, sir!” The male voice came from William’s left. Of course, Wakefield was William’s in-game name, so he turned. Approaching him was a dark-skinned, wiry man William - rather, Wakefield - recognized as his second in command, Margonnau.

“I’m a little early, but no matter. Is it still to happen?”

“To my knowledge, Commander. the rabble outside has yet to indicate otherwise.” Margonnau gestured vaguely toward the gate, beyond which the besieging horde was camped.

“Good. And my new helmet?”

“Done, and waiting for you, sir.”

“Excellent. I go to prepare, but Margonnau - ”

“Yes sir?” Margonnau must have known that this phrase prefaced orders.

“Get the bows ready, just in case. This is an enemy we cannot trust to have honor.”

Wakefield strode away from Margonnau, knowing the other would follow orders. The Eighth Legion were renowned soldiers, and Margonnau was elite even among them.

Supposedly, most of the men were avatars of players like William. He’d always wondered who, if any, of his men were “bots”, but the autonomous AIs were quite good at going undetected, blending in among "real" players. Mostly, Wakefield just assumed that everyone was human. It was easier that way. Much of the player base of the game preferred to act "in-character" for the setting, taking pride in their roles and pretending while in the game that the world beyond it did not exist.

Of course, that wasn’t unanimous - there are always those who just want cheap, nihilistic fun - and a large group of that sort were encamped just outside. Calling themselves by the unlikely name “xX SW0RDZ0RZ Xx”, the rogue army laying siege to Grozun Keep had no purpose but to pillage and destroy. They were without honor, bound only by the coded restrictions of the game, which were loose.

To minimize the death toll from the siege, Commander Wakefield had challenged their leader to a duel some days ago. Luckily, the invading army would suffer desertions or a forced withdrawal if it declined - enforced by the server if need be. Not wanting to risk it, they’d accepted. Wakefield knew that there was always the chance of a double-cross. The penalties for double-crosses weren’t nearly so steep as those for cowardice, presumably because double-crossing required finesse and subtlety.

As Wakefield was heading to the armory to collect his gear, he spied a sleek, dark-colored cat, glaring at him from under a smashed wagon. The cats, William knew, were primarily cosmetic entities - but even they served a purpose in the game’s equations. In Grozun keep, they kept vermin numbers low, which made his soldiers healthier. As the garrison commander, Wakefield had control over even something so trivial as cat population - and sometimes he wondered whether the game moved cats from other places here when he requested them, or just spawned new ones.

Reminded of his responsibilities, Wakefield stopped and held up a hand, telling the game to display the stats of his fortress and its garrison. The statistics grid, with all its options and sliders and numbers, appeared in blue glowing letters above his hand. He checked to make sure that the soldiers were healthy and well-fed, and that supplies were still high. Everything looked good. There was damage, but the keep was more or less intact, and still defensible. Wakefield was satisfied - he wanted his affairs to be in order in case the challenge should go badly. A few tweaks later, Wakefield waved away the glowing display.

The new helmet fit perfectly. With help from a page, the commander assembled the rest of his armor, and draped an alliance-insignia tabbard over it. The Eighth Legion’s bold scarlet-and-gold insignia stood out starkly against its white field and Wakefield’s polished mail. Collecting his blade from the armory, the commander strode to the gate, where a six-man honor guard was waiting. He tried to look more confident than he felt.

At one level, William wondered what sort of character his next avatar would be, if it came to that. At another, Sir Wakefield wondered how Margonnau would treat the sudden promotion if his commander fell.

The portcullis inched up, and Wakefield stepped out, making sure that his honor guard was bearing the flag of truce. The game would have warned him if they hadn’t been, of course. The unmarked green flag of truce flew from the enemy ranks, too. Wakefield led the way towards the designated spot, a flat expanse of grass near the lake that was perfect for a duel. Other banners flew from those sullen ranks, too - among many vulgar and/or mildly obscene images and letterings, William saw several of his troops’ own banners, painted over in black lettering with various taunts and obscenities. This bothered him some, as he knew that those were banners taken from the corpses of Legion officers - but Wakefield forced himself to ignore them. After all, the enemy was trying to rile him.

The enemy procession was farther from the designated spot, so Wakefield and his honor guard got there first. The commander surveyed the scene, briefly - the lakeshore was not tactically significant, but was in view and bow range from both the Keep’s walls and the left flank of the enemy entrenchments. It was a perfect dueling spot, as it was a flat expanse of healthy grass, terminating in a marshy copse of trees at either side of the shore and bordered landward by a steep, grassy hill.

The enemy commander marched to the spot slowly, grinning like a madman. He was short, wiry, dressed only in red-painted light mail. He carried a simple long-sword, and there was a shield slung over his back. Wakefield stood quietly, waiting for the other to speak first.

“Ohai! Rdy?” The other spouted suddenly, mockingly. The game showed Wakefield the stranger’s name - “AwfulSauce.”

“Ground rules first, good sir.” Of course, Wakefield was being overly polite for appearance’s sake. “What say you to this: no respites, and we stay within this flat area, out of the trees?”

AwfulSauce shrugged, still smiling in anticipation, or in madness. “Whatevr, man. Lesgo.” He readied his shield and blade.

Wakefield took a deep breath, waving his honor guard to stand clear, and pulled his four-foot-long sword from its scabbard on his back.

With a wicked cackle, the red-armored man charged Wakefield.

The big man sidestepped, swinging his blade into the other’s path. AwfulSauce, though, managed to bat the blade up with his shield and to nick Wakefield in the hip. Wakefield’s armor made the blow harmless, but his opponent’s honor guard cheered mockingly. Somehow, they got his whole army cheering too.

“So I getz ur base nao?” Wakefield simply ignored the other’s taunts. AwfulSauce was fast, given, but Wakefield was tough and would probably outlast his opponent. The real danger here was losing the psychological war.

Wakefield swept his blade in a slow arc to force the man back. He had a reach advantage of almost a foot and a half, and resolved to use it. “Hardly.”

Then three arrows, fletchings dyed black, landed in the field near Wakefield. From their angle, they’d come from the enemy honor guard. The commander glanced that way, and saw those men holding bows and laughing amongst themselves. “Treachery!” Wakefield hissed, but he stopped short of yelling it out. He realized that if AwfulSauce’s men tried to get involved, the server would inform every soldier in the Legion, including Wakefiled himself. Since it hadn’t, the arrows couldn’t be aimed at him.

The red-garbed man used Wakefield’s surprise to get in close, trying again to use his shield to block the bigger man’s sword. This time, Wakefield put his full weight into the swing, and the act of blocking sent the smaller man reeling off to one side, unhurt but off balance.

Several more arrows landed nearby. Wakefield realized now that they were another part of the psychology game - they were designed merely to rattle him. He tried to ignore them as he pressed his advantage.

AwfulSauce backpedaled, blocking furiously, and Wakefield pursued him, backing him toward the copse of trees at one edge of the designated space. More arrows thudded into the grass, but Wakefield forced them out of his mind. To his credit, AwfulSauce was good - he didn’t let even one jab or cut through his guard.

They were at the edge of the trees, then, and both had their feet in the damp leaves, but the wiry man didn’t stop. Wakefield at first expected him to, but he remembered immediately that the game didn’t enforce ground rules agreed between parties in a challenge.

Scowling, Wakefield refused to cross the verge. He’d be at a disadvantage in tight spaces. Turning, the Legion commander walked back to the center of the grass.

“If you wanted to fight in the shade, sir, you should have named a spot in the woods.” Wakefield called out. His red-clad opponent lurked just inside the trees. His face was shrouded in the shade, but Wakefield guessed he was still wearing that madman grin.

A minute passed. Two. The man just stood there, and Wakefield stood in the field staring at him. Several more times AwfulSauce’s honor guard fired arrows into the field, but eventually they stopped bothering. One by one, the spent arrows de-spawned, fading into thin air.

The Legion commander began to tire of this waiting game. He’d never heard of commanders’ challenges ending like this -with one party playing coward - the game probably had some sort of enforcing built in, but Wakefield didn’t know what it was.

“So then, is your plan to let me die of old age?” Wakefield called out, out of boredom and irritation.

“Umad?” came the sneering reply. Wakefield recognized the taunt for what it was.

Fed up with the situation, the bigger man shrugged. “Well then, I accept your surrender.” He meant it as a taunt and a warning. Turning, he took a few steps toward his honor guard. The game immediately parsed his words, and Wakefield knew that the server would be sending an interrogative message to AwfulSauce.

To his surprise, the game displayed a capitulation timer over the enemy commander’s head: twenty seconds. Apparently, AwfulSauce had registered his agreement. As long as the timer was counting down, though, the other could still cancel the order. Stepping forward, shield replaced on his back, the man in the red armor extended a hand to Wakefield. “Ok. You win.” He was still grinning.

Wakefield shouldered his blade, extending his own hand. He was mildly suspicious, but the timer was at five seconds now and counting down. “Well, then, if you - ”

At two seconds, the timer vanished and AwfulSauce’s blade came out of nowhere to deliver a nasty cut to Wakefield’s extended arm. He’d have lost the limb if it weren’t for his armor, but still the blow was serious. “Lol, JK!” was all that AwfulSauce offered as explanation. Wakefield backed up, getting his own blade in between them. The injury put him at a disadvantage, and the Legion commander mentally chided himself for being so easily tricked. Warm blood tricked down his arm, and the mad-grinning enemy stepped in to finish him off.

Three arrows fletched in gold hit the sod near AwfulSauce’s feet, causing him to pause in confusion. Wakefield smiled. Margonnau. Gold arrows meant his own archers - the other officer had probably seen AwfulSauce’s trick earlier. He was having the bowmen on the walls fire into the field, but not at anyone. Wakefield used the pause to take a step back and get his guard up.

The man in red recovered, and pressed Wakefield, but the bigger man was ready for him now, even with his injury. Wakefield batted aside AwfulSauce’s shorter blade and aimed a cut for the smaller man’s chest. The short slash was blocked, but it did get Wakefield back on the offensive.

Knowing that he might not get another chance, Wakefield put all his strength into a vertical sweep that could have bisected a horse. AwfulSauce had no time to dodge, so he threw his shield into the path of the blade. The move saved his life, but destroyed his shield, and knocked him backwards onto the ground. Wakefield had his blade to his opponent’s throat before the other could recover. “It’s over. Yield.”

AwfulSauce snarled, breaking his deaths-head grin, and kicked out, tripping Wakefield. That was a risky move - Wakefield, in falling, nearly removed his opponent’s head - but somehow the smaller commander escaped harm. Before Wakefield, weighted down by his armor, could stand, AwfulSauce came at him, blade swinging. His shield arm, the Legion commander noted, hung limply - it was probably broken.

Wakefield parried from one knee, struggling to regain his feet without letting his guard down. He realized that he’d have to kill AwfulSauce to end this - the other wasn’t going to surrender. The broken arm put Wakefield back in advantage, but that didn’t mean AwfulSauce couldn’t still kill him.

Wakefield parried an upward cut, and used the momentum to finish standing while his opponent’s blade was tangled. AwfulSauce drew back, but not far enough to be out of Wakefield’s reach - he was forced to parry a horizontal sweep by batting it up before it reached his head. The mask of maddening grin seemed permanently replaced by an equally unmoving mask of fury.

Wakefield sidestepped a sudden lunge, and jabbed his blade into the space. This time, AwfulSauce had no shield to block with, and took the blade in the abdomen.

Wakefield raised his sword to finish off AwfulSauce, but paused when the game informed him of AwfulSauce’s user disconnect. The player who was his opponent was gone, but his avatar was held in the game by the duel.

Wakefield, disappointed, brought his blade down. AwfulSauce died. The kill brought little comfort, and no satisfaction. Besides, the player behind the name would be back, under another name.

It did, however, settle the commanders’ challenge. The enemy ranks on the hill above were now limned in sickly yellow: a server-forced retreat. As per the game rules, their faction would not be permitted to attack Grozun Keep again for two months.

A cheer went up from the keep’s walls as Wakefield’s honor guard saw to his injury. They then wasted no time getting him back into the fortress. In the courtyard, Margonnau stood in front of the men, who were arranged in full parade ranks. ”Congratulations, sir. The enemy is retreating.”

“They’ll be back. We haven’t seen the last of this ‘SW0RDZ0RZ’ rabble.” Wakefield warned. “All I’ve done is bought us two months.”

“Then let’s make the most of it, commander.” Margonnau suggested.

“Agreed. See to repairing the damage and restocking our stores. Tomorrow I’ll pay a visit to an old friend. Next time I see their banners, I want to have a little surprise waiting for them.” Wakefield brought up the glowing-blue menu, and selected the “Disconnect” option, but did not confirm. “I need to rest, now. You are in command until I return.” Wakefield’s injuries would heal over time while William was disconnected, and continuing to play while injured risked infection, or further injury.

“Yes, sir.” Margonnau nodded curtly. Wakefield confirmed the disconnect.

The tunnel enveloped Wakefield - no, William - in green whorls, which slowly changed to yellow, then red, then faded to black.

This story written for Klazzform's Short Story Competition on dndonlinegames.com.