Torian Reclamation 2: Flash Move (37 page)

The space station still served as a sanctuary. Jol2 noticed that each time the Torians regrouped there, the enemy—especially the Latians—would venture closer to it, as if they were testing the boundaries, seeing when and where the light weapon may be fired. They kept themselves spread apart when they did that.

Jol2 didn’t like the way the battle was going. The Torians still had an advantage in numbers, but it wasn’t helping as much as it should. Casualties on both sides were mounting equally. The Torian military would be severely wounded if this kept up. The High General must have realized this as well. You could hear the frustration in his voice on the command channel.

Jol2 was about to order another engagement when a new fleet of fighter ships could be seen massing at Amulen.

“What’s happening over Amulen?” Jol2 asked the dispatcher. “Are more Latians coming?”

“Negative on Latian,” the voice said back. “Please stand by for identification.”

“Dirg,” the dispatcher said after a short pause. “The Dirgs have scrambled their fighters.”

Olut6’s voice came back on the speaker. “Hold your position at Cardinal-4, boys. Repeat. Hold your position.”

Jol2 fought back a growing feeling of despondency. If another alien fighter fleet was lining up against them, the Torain military would have more than they could handle.

“General, you’ve got to bring the ITF1’s into the fight,” Jol2 radioed.

“Just hold steady for one extat minute, Captain. Let’s see if we’re getting help.”

Help. That’s what they thought when the Latians scrambled, and they only joined the enemy.

The light weapon. It had to be the light weapon that was causing the visiting aliens to make war with them. Jol2 understood. It was a fearsome device of mass destruction. The aliens were all afraid of it, and would rather destroy the Torians than allow anyone to possess such a thing. This whole affair was so convoluted. Now the Torians were relying on their enemies’ fear of it in order to maintain a measure of control in the ongoing battle. Too bad they didn’t actually possess such a thing. It would be incredibly useful right about now.

Maybe the High General knew something about the Dirgs Jol2 didn’t. He had, after all, recently visited Amulen. The Torian fighter fleet obeyed the last order and hung back around the station. They watched as the Dirg fighters assembled next to Amulen in the distance.

The Latians, meanwhile, boldly inched ever closer to Cardinal-4 in well spread-out fly-by formations. They came within range of Cardinal-4’s REEP defense system now when they did that, but were so spread out the bunker probably couldn’t find a shot they liked.

The Dirg fleet finished massing and began to approach from Amulen.

“Clear the front side of the station,” the dispatcher’s voice said on the speaker. Good. They were going to take a shot at the impetuous Latians. Perhaps that would make the Dirgs think twice about engaging them.

Only one squadron of fighters needed to clear the front of Cardinal-4, as the rest of the fleet was positioned above, below, and behind it. A new wave of Latian fighters then swooped by in front of the station. The space went wavy and two of them exploded. Two others were visibly shaken. The Latians retreated and rejoined the enemy ranks.

Then the Dirgs came. Their fleet of half-star shaped fighters accelerated impressively the last distance between Amulen and the enemy position. Some of the dark ships, and several of the Latian fighters, turned to face them. But not many. Jol2 got the impression they didn’t know whether the new fleet would be friend or foe either—but reacted in a non-confrontational way, banking on them being friendly.

That was a mistake. The Dirgs fired into the rear of the enemy position. They had come to help! Olut6 was right. And these guys could fly. Jol2 was impressed with their attack formation, which came in fast and tight before spreading out at the last second. A significant portion of their fleet broke off and ran directly at the Latian position. So much for their truce.

“The Dirgs are friendly!” Jol2 radioed. “Repeat, the Dirgs have engaged the enemy. Moving in to help.”

“Go,” Olut6’s voice said back.

With so many of the enemy ships having now turned to engage the Dirgs, Jol2 found his next attack run to be much less hindered. Inspired by the veracity of the Dirg attack, Jol2 led his squadrons in fast and tight, directly at the enemy, spreading out at the last moment as the Dirgs had done. It was the pincer movement he wanted before. The Latians and the dark ships were now fighting two fronts.

Jol2’s gunner focused and scored two direct hits with lasers, damaging two of the dark ships. The space all around them was full of fighters and lasers. Jol2 arced his way up and through it all to the left, coming out of the dark ships and heading towards the Latian grouping. His gunner fired missiles into the thickest part of them.

Jol2 didn’t wait to see if the missiles hit before swinging back around to Cardinal-4 again. Most of the Torian fighters did the same. It was better to make calculated runs from their position of safety than to stay actively engaged. That was higher percentage fighting for them. The enemy wanted them to stay actively engaged. Never give the enemy what they want.

As Jol2’s ship flew around the backside of the station, he saw two big yellow fireballs detonate above Banor. The spacewalker crews had successfully blown the remaining two attack satellites. Banor was safe again.

*

Jumper’s opponent in the final was from a race known as the Callians. Jumper remembered them a little from his galactic species studies. They were the ones who wore the helmets with the dark face shields and blinking lights. The rest of their outfits matched their helmets; eggshell-colored arm and leg guards, plus a breast plate, all made from some kind of hard plastic alloy. Jumper didn’t know if they dressed that way to protect themselves from solar rays, or if they just wanted to look like a bunch of tough-looking robot warriors or something.

One thing he did know was they were unemotional in their approach to the game. When Jumper’s opponent emerged victorious in the semi-finals, he showed no jubilation, and, once again, the Callians in the stands only stood and clapped in an orderly fashion. That may have been part of their gamesmanship, but they sure appeared to have every expectation of winning the tournament.

As the two of them walked out on the field, Jumper discovered he finally had a cheering section. A large one. He was he last Torian left alive, and had apparently assumed the role of the new local hero. They went crazy when he stepped on the field, cheered louder when he waved to the crowd, and roared as he took his seat in the mechanical chair.

This was what he had been playing for, to win the opportunity to play on the special game set. It was, perhaps, the single greatest thrill of his life. The Callian took the opposite chair and they both played with the controls for a bit to get the feel of them. The joystick pulled up and pushed down in addition to moving directionally, so it alone controlled all possible movement.

The chair controls were sensitive. The large mechanical elbow-arms that held the seats complied with the joysticks’ every slight whim.

The Callian moved his seat up to the top of the frame once, over to one side once, backwards once, and then pulled it forward to sit in the middle and wait for the game to begin.

Not Jumper. He wanted to milk the opportunity for all it was worth. He drove the chair all around the frame, out, in, down diagonally, and made tightening circular motions to the delight of the audience.

Belle-ub stepped up to the front of his terrace and delivered a short speech before the final game began. It was late in the afternoon. Shadows stretched across the stadium, leaving only the highest seats on the western side to bask in the remaining rays of sunlight.

The stadium lighting came on and the crowd cheered. Belle-ub congratulated the two finalists and made a few more remarks about galactic peace before stepping back.

The game frame turned on. The light from it was bright. Jumper shielded his eyes until it retracted to the edges of the frame and dimmed. It was time to play.

But something didn’t feel right to Jumper. The energy from the game had a bad effect on him. His head started hurting and the knot returned in his stomach. He was fine until the game turned on. Being this close to such a strong electromagnetic field might not be something that is easy on the human physique.

Jumper was the curved pieces again, having finished first in the semi-finals. He drove the chair down to the piece bin, grabbed one, took it to the upper-middle of the frame, positioned it sideways, and released. The force of the energy field sucking it into place was stronger than he expected, and tipped him off balance. He had to steady himself with his other arm on the side of the chair to avoid falling out of it.

The crowd roared, the video screen went red, and the Callian calmly drove his chair to his piece bin. He took two of them out, went up to Jumper’s piece and made the expected defensive move. It seemed he anticipated the next move and had his next piece ready to place. Jumper obliged him, and there were quickly four pieces in the frame.

This time, Jumper wasted no time in branching out to a gambit variation. He placed his third piece off by itself on the upper portion of one side of the frame.

The Callian reacted the same way Alan would have. That was disappointing. Alan had learned how to occasionally beat Jumper in his wild gambit-style openings by basically mimicking what Jumper did. That is, build his own offshoot pattern on the other side of the main cluster. This was going to be a tough game. Jumper wished Alan was here to watch it.

Several moves later, the Callian made the first blocking move. It was a good one, because it simultaneously created a possible offensive threat. It was the kind of move that made Jumper prefer the straight pieces over the curved.

The Callian, in fact, played the straight pieces in roughly the same manner Jumper was prone to play them, and Jumper soon found himself on the defensive as a result. That first blocking move of the Callian’s was perfect. Extat, it’s why the curved pieces weren’t the advantage everyone thought they were. Jumper regretted being the first winner of the semi-finals.

The frame continued to fill with pieces. The Callian played a slow, methodical game. He didn’t make any risky bridging propositions. At this rate, the frame would be nearly full before a winning pattern emerged. It’s what Jumper and his friends referred to as a
blackout
game. In a blackout game, the winning pattern would seem to appear from nowhere, connecting its way through the mess of pieces in the frame and suddenly making sense out of them all. It wasn’t all that unusual of a way for a game to end, but the way this one was going Jumper thought it would be the straight pieces that emerged victorious. And he wasn’t seeing any way to stop it.

The crowd didn’t notice these subtler nuances, as they continued cheering after each of Jumper’s moves. Jumper knew they were going to be shortly disappointed.

Sometimes in polwar, when things weren’t going Jumper’s way, he found it helped to take his focus off the game for a minute. He decided to move around some. He ended up driving his chair up over the top of the game frame, to the delight of the crowd. It was kind of cool to be up here.

The video screen flashed red, but then it showed something that caught Jumper’s attention. He thought he saw Alan on it. Were his eyes playing tricks on him?

He drove the chair off to the left side of the game frame and looked up at the screen. It now showed a picture of him, looking precariously perched above a corner of the huge frame. He realized he looked ridiculous there, but didn’t care at the moment.

Jumper began scanning the audience. Most of them were grouped together in sections by race, so they were easy to survey.

He saw them. Directly across from him, surrounded by native Torians, midway up in the stands. It was Brandon, Alan and Kayla. They were here! What’s more, they were cheering.

Alan waved at him and made the peace sign. Jumper returned it. Brandon waved. He looked to be smiling. Brandon then gave him a thumb’s up.

It looked like Kayla was holding something. Something that was moving. An animal. No—that couldn’t be right.

Kayla blew him a kiss. Jumper reached out with one hand and pretended to grab it. The crowd went wild. Jumper then noticed Brandon, Alan, and Kayla were back on the big video screen, but as soon as Jumper looked to it the picture changed and held a view of Jumper with his fist outstretched. He looked like a total idiot now. Jumper laughed at himself.

It was all good. His people were here for him. That made all the difference in the world. Jumper was about to lose this game, but at least he got to play in the finals with his own true fans here to witness. And Uncle Brandon was being so cool about it, so supportive. It was almost enough to bring a tear to Jumper’s eye—but not quite.

Jumper took the chair back down to the game again. He then decided to back it all the way out to get a farther-away view. The Callian was still sitting in place, waiting patiently.

That’s when it happened.

Ever since the lights came on in the stadium, the brass game pieces had been reflecting sparkles, even more as the overhead sky grew darker. But what Jumper saw now he recognized. It was different than the flashes from the pieces—barely. It happened in an open area near the bottom on one side of the main cluster. It was not a place where current action was taking place. On the surface, it looked like a great place to waste a move and let the Callian gain the final momentum to quickly win.

But the flash move always looked like that when it came. Jumper trusted his instincts. And he really had nothing to lose at this juncture. He took the chair down, grabbed a piece, and placed it in the spot where the special flash had appeared.

The crowd didn’t cheer. That was the first time they remained silent after he moved. Jumper did hear a soft applause coming from somewhere, though. He looked to see if it was from Alan, Brandon, and Kayla. It wasn’t. It was coming from the Callian section. It must have looked to the audience that Jumper had just made the same mistake the Sinlo champ had in the semi-finals; that of letting spectator participation throw him off his game.