Today is a good day. Clear skies, cool air, warm sunlight. I’m in the mood for war.
Not waging war, of course. That’s not until the day after tomorrow. Today, I get to watch. Today, the Komodos are taking on the Peregrines.
There are no seats for viewing inside the Crucible- but there are cameras. The War games are broadcast live, not just to the Citadel, but across the Imperium. It’s a rather popular event for betting, according to Niko. The Stormwolf is sitting beside me, but his attention is on the screen in his hand, showing the prediction markets, rather than the one up above us, showing the as-yet empty battlefield.
Almost every member of my Gazelles, along with a significant number of the Oxen, are gathered in the Citadel’s second-largest agora to watch the match, joined by a collection of staff members, administrators, and professors. The rest are in the largest agora, watching the match between the Grizzly Unit and the Locust Unit, which is happening at the same time. It seems a little unfair to schedule two War Games matches on the same day, but I suppose the administration had their reasons. My guess would be that they didn’t want too many eyes on the lower-year match, because they suspect it’s going to be a pretty one-sided display.
The format for this match was announced early this morning, to give the two teams a few hours to prepare. They’re doing siege- a format typically reserved for matches where one side needs a handicap. And the Peregrines are the ones who’ll be defending a pre-constructed fortress from the attacking Komodos. Even then, I don’t much like their odds. And, judging by a glance over Niko’s shoulder, neither does the rest of the Imperium.
Sofie reaches over into my lap and grabs a fistful of popcorn from the bag held between my legs. The three of us are sitting on a blanket laid out on one of the agora’s vast lawns, in a spot with a great view of the holographic view screens being projected up in the air for us.
Currently, a bird’s-eye view of the Crucible arena is on display. It’s a large, sandy expanse, surrounding a sturdy-looking white-and-green fortification, the backside of which seems to be built into the walls of the Crucible itself. A few large rocks and some man made structures dot the desertlike area outside, but for the most part it’s barren and empty. That’s where the Komodos will be deploying, presumably, while the Peregrines will be heading straight inside the fort. From what I can tell, the only visible entrance points are on the east and west sides of the facility, avenues of approach with little cover and clear lines of sight from the fortress’s windows. It looks like the odds are being stacked against the Komodos, but unless Anton was playing a character during our meeting the other night, I have a feeling this was necessary to make it even a vaguely fair fight.
“This is boring,” Sofie declares, mouth full of popcorn. “How’s your degenerate gambling going, Nicky?”
“Safe money’s still on Hark and her people. For first-year matches, the attacking team wins siege seven out of ten times. This doesn’t seem like it’s gonna be the outlier. Then again,” Niko chuckles, “I am just a lowly soldier. If our esteemed commander has a different take, I’ll gladly defer to her wisdom.”
“As well you should,” I reply, eyes still glued to the screen. To tell the truth, I can’t help but think about how I’d handle this situation if I was in Anton’s shoes- or Hark’s. Sieges in general are an interesting tactical conundrum, one nobody’s been able to conclusively solve from either side.
Most of my Gazelles have gathered on one side of the agora, while the Oxen are on the opposite side. Despite that, there isn’t much tension in the air- everybody’s got their attention on the battle that’s about to go down. Plus, despite the fact that we’re going to be having a battle of our own soon enough, we don’t have much of a reason to hate each other. I’ll still fight as hard as I can, because winning here is crucial to the furtherance of my goals, but I don’t hold any more animosity towards Starling and his Oxen than I would to a locked door that’s barring my path.
Just as I’m thinking about that, I see two people across the agora get up and start heading towards our side, moving swiftly, aware that people on both sides are now staring at them. Looking closer, I realize that one of them is Tellis, wearing the red longcoat he was contemplating buying when we spoke the other day, no less. His companion is a skeletally-thin woman with long black hair and matching solid-black eyes, which have deep black veins emanating from them, making it look like she’s crying tears of pure darkness at all times. Most strikingly, however, are the black ‘wings’ stretching from her back, like the bones inside of a dragon’s wings. No doubt nonfunctional, as they lack the flesh that would be necessary to allow her to even glide for a moment if outstretched. She makes a strange pairing with Tellis, who bears no outward signs of genetic modification whatsoever- but something tells me that’s why he prefers her company. She represents something forbidden to him, the freedom to look the way she wants without regard for social convention. It calls to mind his initial fascination with my tail, when we first met.
“Izanami! I thought I’d find you here.”
Once he’s close enough to make his voice heard, I push myself up off the blanket I was resting on, and wave to him. Sofie and Niko remain seated, the former eyeing him suspiciously, the latter remaining glued to his palm-screen.
“Well, I wasn’t gonna miss this. Who’s your friend?”
“This is Anand,” he says, gracefully stepping aside to let her approach, arm outstretched to shake. Her skeletal wings fold inward as she passes, to avoid smacking him in the back of the head. I take the proffered hand and shake, noting surprising strength in her grip despite her seeming frailty. “She’s one of our unit’s intelligence operatives.”
“A pleasure,” the taller woman says, just a hint of a brogue in her voice. Hard to know whether she’s got some genuine cultural connection there, or if it’s all a weird thematic put-on. Not that I’m in any position to comment on that, having taken a Japanese goddess’ name for my own, without a hint of real connection to that culture.
“Likewise. What’s your take on all this?” I ask, gesturing to the screen above us.
“The Peregrines are in an unenviable situation. Were I in Anton’s position, I’d make eliminating Hark the priority. Cutting the head off of the snake, as it were.”
“She’s an assassination specialist,” Tellis tells me, with a conspiritorial wink.
“Of course,” I laugh. “Politicians say every problem can be solved with more politics, generals say every problem can be solved by going to war, and assassins say every problem can be solved with an assassination.”
“Nobody wants to talk themselves out of a job,” Anand comments wryly.
“Exactly.”
“Well, you’re lucky to have an assassination expert on-hand,” I tell Tellis. “Pretty sure most of my intel people couldn’t kill their way out of a wet paper bag.”
“Hey, I heard that,” Sofie chuckles.
“Not you, dear,” I reply reassuringly, grinning.
“I’m certain your intelligence operatives all have their strengths,” Tellis says diplomatically, while Anand hides a smirk behind her hand, though her eyes give her amusement away. Seems like she finds his bafflement and discomfort at our friendly banter endearing, which I guess is probably the best-case scenario for him, since he’s obviously infatuated with her. “In any case, I wouldn’t want to keep you- it seems things are about to kick off.”
He nods in the direction of the screen, which does seem to be indicating that the War Games are beginning shortly.
“Well, it was good to see you, Telly. And nice to meet you,” I tell Anand, inclining my head respectfully. “Apologies in advance for anything that might happen on Might bEighthday.”
“Likewise,” she replies with a wicked grin, before turning away with a wave and following Tellis back to the Ox Unit’s side of the agora. I sit back down, noting that Sofie picked up the bag of popcorn from where I left it when I got up, and grab a handful for myself.
“They seem nice,” she comments idly. “Shame what we’re gonna do to ‘em.”
To anybody listening, it probably sounds like she’s talking about our plans for the War Games, but I know she really means our plot to sow dissent within the ranks of the Oxen by fabricating some footage of Tellis disparaging certain members of the unit who already harbor antipathy towards him. That part of the plan will commence tomorrow, during our final preparations.
“He knows it’s not personal. Might be a little uptight, but his Founder was as ruthless as they came. If anything, this’ll probably be good for him, it’ll force him to embrace that side.”
But by that point, it won’t be our problem- each unit only faces off against each other unit once, at least within a single semester. There’ll be a rematch in our second year here at the Citadel, assuming I live that long. But considering the odds of my survival, based on historical precedent, are fairly low, it’s best for me not to be making any long-term plans right now.
A regrettably grim line of thinking to be engaging in, when I’m here spending time with two people I’m quite fond of, on such a lovely day. To distract myself, I return to thoughts of war. The teams haven’t taken the field quite yet, but commentary for the match is beginning now.
“Laaaaaadies and gentlemen,” roars a sonorous voice from speakers stationed all across the agora. “Who’s ready for a fight?”
There are some enthusiastic cheers from around the area, mainly stemming from the Nobles, though a couple faculty members and Citadel staffers join in as well. The commentators can’t hear us, since they’re addressing everybody viewing this match, all over the Imperium, but it’s still a decent effort.
“My name is Baxter Bryant, I’m your host for the first of this year’s War Games, broadcasting live from the Imperial Broadcasting Guild’s studios on Narada III. My cohost here is Arno Van Horn, Professor of Nobility at New Ottawa University.”
“Erm, yes, thank you, Baxter,” comes a thin, reedy voice after a pause.
“Now, Arno,” the bombastic announce continues, “you’re here to give us a historical perspective on today’s match. For instance, this year’s new Citadel class is the first in over five hundred years to have two members of the fabled Nine Titans enrolled at the same time, is that right?”
“Yes indeed,” confirms the professor, sounding slightly more confident now that things are getting into his preferred subject matter. “The first is one Lucia Hark, fifty-fourth in the line of the Grim Dragon. Commander of the Komodo Unit, one of the two armies which will be competing today. And the other is an… Izanami, eighty-eighth in the line of the Deceiver Admiral, leader of the Gazelle Unit.”
The way he pronounces my name drips with disdain for the fact that I don’t come from a family with a surname, which implies low status. Nobles come from all sorts of backgrounds, but we’re a tiny minority among the trillions of people who live within the Imperium, and outside of places like the Citadel, the pedigree of one’s name matters. On a resource-rich industrial world, nobody will blink twice if you have no family name, but if you want to be taken seriously in the upper echelons of society, be it politics, corporate industry, or academia, you’d best have a name that fits the part. And especially not one as vulgar as mine, which must reek of the hubris of a baseborn dirt-dweller to them. Who’d name herself after a deity? Someone with no class, no class at all.
“Look, Izzy, you’re on TV!”
Sofie’s joke snaps me out of my resentful ruminations, and I chuckle. Looking back up, I notice that my face is indeed on the screen, next to Hark’s, with the symbol of our respective units behind each of us.
“Three cheers for being a statistical anomaly.”
That’s all they expect me to be, no doubt. A footnote to Hark’s legend in the making, not talented enough to make it out of the Citadel, or just another rival crushed underfoot on her way to the top. That’s not how I intend for my story to go.
“Interesting,” Bryant says, in the tones of someone who doesn’t actually find the subject of discussion to be very interesting at all. “Miss Hark’s a bit of a special case herself, isn’t she? The youngest-ever unit commander in Citadel history?”
“Quite so. Child Nobles are rare, but not unheard-of. Child commanders, however, were a mere dream until the beginning of this year’s term. If any Noble line were to justify such a thing, however, it would be the Grim Dragon’s. I wouldn’t call it an exaggeration to say that everybody in the field has their eye on young Lucia.”
Something about how he uses her first name creeps me out. It’s an overly familiar way to refer to somebody he’s never met, much less a child. On the other hand, it’s hardly fair to make any wild speculations, given that I’ve never met him either. More likely than any impropriety is simply that he, being a scholar of Nobles and Founders, feels as though he knows her personally, because he’s read so much about the life of her Founder, and past members of her line. Hark, on the other hand, will probably never so much as register his existence. She’s got a singular focus that I’m not looking forward to being the target of.
“Okay, well, it looks like we don’t have long until the battle begins,” Baxter says. “Make sure to get those final bets in, folks, because this could easily go either way.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a reason to put money on this,” I remark with a laugh.
“Not true, either,” Niko replies, without looking up. “Guess they’ve gotta maintain the pretense though.”
As the holo-screen switches back to a view of the battlefield, a hush falls over the crowd in the agora, idle chatter dying out as anticipation for the battle rises. Trying to look less engaged than I actually am, I lean back, yawn softly, and toss a popcorn kernel in my mouth.
“The teams will be taking the field momentarily. Professor, how much time have these young Nobles had to prepare?”
“Not much,” Van Horn replies. I can picture him pushing a pair of glasses up from the bridge of his nose to answer, although nobody wears reading glasses for anything other than aesthetic purposes these days. “The defenders, in this case the Peregrine Unit, will have been given a blueprint of their fortress, so they’ll know which key points need defending in advance, while the attacking Komodo Unit will be going in blind.”
“Interesting,” Bryant says again, this time sounding more like he actually means it. “Guess you’ve gotta balance the scales a bit when one of the Titans is on the battlefield.”
“Quite so. Now look- they’re emerging.”
A door in the wall of the Crucible opens. Despite the arena having otherwise been built to look entirely natural, the walls are still drab, industrial grey, reminding the viewers that this is all taking place within an artificial construct. The upper-class units, by contrast, are duking it out in the very real jungles of Akademos right now, contending with wildlife along with their rivals. Given that, I can’t blame anybody for choosing to tune in to that match rather than this one. If I was an ordinary viewer, that would probably be my first choice as well- but obviously, given my position, I can’t pass up the chance to see two of my rivals in action for the first time.
Emerging first through the door isn’t Hark, but Hector- the burly, bearded, older man who kicked my ass in the sparring ring some weeks ago. He’s also the head of the Komodo combat team, which explains his position as the proverbial tip of the spear. At his side are two others, both holding rifles of the same make and model as him. They halt their advance when he raises a fist, and at his gesture, fan out to secure the immediate area. Perhaps overly cautious, since the Peregrines are entering at the same time as them, and couldn’t possibly have had time to lay any traps. But they’re doing this by the book regardless, which seems entirely in character with Hark’s strategic mindset.
On the screen, a small text box emerges, with a line linking it to Hector, showing a short list of statistics, including his name, age, and Noble line. The same pops up for the other two moments later. The holo-projection is large and three-dimensional, so the text boxes don’t block much of the actual action, but they disappear shortly after regardless.
“Looks like that’s Hector Casales,” Bryant adds, his confident tones filling the silence of the Komodo team’s slow, careful advance. “Head of the Komodo Unit’s combat team. Forty-first in the line of the Master of Arms, a line with quite the pedigree when it comes to waging war. Up there next to him, that’s William Stoddard, fiftieth in the line of the Warden, and Kimimela Xquenda, sixty-second in the line of the Jade Knight.”
The mention of that Noble line seems to pique the professor’s interest, as he speaks up unprompted for what I think might be the first time.
“Ahh, now that’s an interesting tale, the Jade Knight. Originally a Warlord’s champion, you see- only to turn on her master and join the Emperor’s cause. Evidently she acquitted herself well enough to earn Founder status, but never quite well enough to gain the Emperor’s trust.”
“We’ll just have to see if that suspicion is warranted,” Baxter finishes smoothly, before falling silent, as Hector signals to the rest of the unit that the coast is clear for them to emerge.
They’re all wearing body armor and helmets, making it difficult to distinguish individuals beyond the scraps of skin visible. Hark, obviously, is hard to miss, being a good few feet short than everybody else. At her side is a tall, thin man who, based on what I can see of his face, seems like he was the Komodo spy who was watching us during our staged training session. The text box that pops up next to him says his name is simply Petyr, of the line of Shufen, the Fixer. Hark looks to him as they step onto the battlefield, and he gives her a single nod.
Beyond him, my eyes are immediately drawn to a woman who swaggers onto the battlefield looking like she couldn’t care less that there’s a battle happening, with a sword strapped to her back and a revolver at her hip. Her name, apparently, is Scáthach, and I immediately want to know more about her. Sadly, the text box disappears a moment before I can get much further into its information on her.
Advancing several yards, the Komodos eventually stop a few feet away from a small ramp leading up onto a platform, which itself leads towards the front of the Peregrines’ fortress. There isn’t a visible front door, but there are several large windows, presumably reinforced so neither side can simply snipe at each other without having to engage directly. The combat team steps aside, allowing somebody who I assume is from their engineering team to take the front position. His info box pops up to identify him as Uzoma Okorie, of the Steelshaper’s line- a cybernetics and body-modification specialist, which would explain the fact that he’s got enough extra arms grafted onto his back to look like a set of wings. They’re all currently occupied holding a single large device, which Okorie plants in the sand right before the stairs. It looks more or less like a wide metal sheet, but once placed, it expands into a miniature shield wall, tall and thick enough to protect from a barrage of bullets if need be.
Immediately, Hark hunkers down behind the barrier. Her retainer does the same, and immediately calls up a set of holo-screens for her. They’ve effectively created a makeshift command center for her. Clearly, they’re aware of what Anand mentioned earlier, that taking out Hark would leave the rest of the group in disarray, and they don’t intend to let that happen.
While all that’s being set up, the combat team hastens to erect a perimeter, deploying several trip-mines and other traps to make sure anybody trying to slip behind the shield-wall and eliminate Hark will have a hard time doing so. My eyes, however, are on someone else entirely- a man who kneels down near where Hark is situated, and removes his armor, then his shirt, to reveal a series of cavities built into his back, sealed mechanically. The seals open, however, to release what looks like a swarm of insects.
“Professor, who is that, and just what is he doing?”
“That would be…” Van Horn pauses for a moment, consulting his notes if I had to guess. “Aslaug Vang. Fifty-seventh in the line of Anderson, the Hivemaster. A drone specialist. It looks like Mister Vang has taken his Founder’s specialty to the next level, storing drones within himself for rapid deployment. Those tiny machines will be acting as his eyes, allowing him to scout out the enemy fortress without risking direct contact.”
Indeed, as he speaks, the cloud of insectoid drones disperses, heading towards the fortress from all directions. Vang is immobile, and somebody puts his shirt and body armor back on him while he kneels there, unresponsive, all of his focus on piloting thousands of minuscule flying machines simultaneously.
For several minutes, he remains like that, while Hark and Petyr consult, and the rest of the unit busies themselves setting up defenses. I can’t imagine they’re planning to stay in that spot and try to wait the enemy out- they’re in a terrible position for a counter-siege. All the enemy would have to do is find a way to launch a few grenades over their wall and it would be over for the Komodos. But right now, their little fortification is giving them time to wait and plan out an attack, which they sorely need, given that they’ve got next to no intel on the enemy’s fortress.
“That’s a neat trick,” remarks Sofie, gesturing to Vang on the screen.
“Yep,” Niko replies, keeping one eye on his palm-screen. “Shame none of our tech people can do anything like that.”
I let out an amused snort.
“Hey, that’s unfair. None of our people can do that, but can he create a deadly nerve gas designed to maximize suffering before death, and deploy it against civilians? I don’t think so.”
As Sofie bursts into surprised laughter, I feel a little bad for making jokes at Nikitha’s expense. She’s been a little standoffish with me- we haven’t really spoken one-on-one yet, either -but the sins of her Founder don’t necessarily carry over to her. Looking around our side of the Agora, I don’t see her anywhere. Probably in the workshop preparing for our match. She’s certainly not the type to be lazing around her apartment or doing something recreational.
“While the Komodos are planning their attack, why don’t we take a look at what the Peregrines are getting up to?” Bryant asks, as the feed cuts to the inside of the fortress. It looks a lot less ramshackle than the buildings that were built for us during our training sessions in the Crucible- I guess the construction teams put in their best effort for the War Games.
Inside the compound, Anton is standing at the window, staring down at the Komodos. Evidently the room overlooking the battlefield is their command center. Nobody seems to be paying much attention to him, though. Their eyes are on two people who I presume to be his officers. One of them I recognize as Callum, the tattooed warrior-cryptarch who I fought weeks ago. The other is unfamiliar. She’s got her hair done up in thick braids that seem to be on fire, the ends lit but not burning, with wispy trails of smoke rising off them. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
“You know who that is?” I ask Niko.
“Yeah. Her name’s Singh, Chandra Singh. Peregrines’ combat officer. Real hardass. She’s in my Fireteam Combat Tactics class.”
Nodding, I examine the scene more closely. Rather than collaborating, it seems like the two of them are giving two entirely separate sets of orders to their respective divisions. Singh finishes first, and claps her hands together, signaling her combat unit to take their positions. They spread out in two groups, each presumably headed to the two main entrances to their base, on the west and east sides of the building.
A moment or two later, Callum gives his people a nod, and they move out, not in groups but as individuals. Several of them follow the combat teams to the main entrances, while others go off in different directions, and a few even stick around the command center, setting up defenses around their commander. One of them simply heads to Anton’s side, resting a hand on his shoulder and whispering something to him. The text box that pops up next to her identifies her as Josefine Naess, of the line of the Oracle. She’s wearing armor, but it’s obvious just from looking at her that her body’s not built for combat. Presumably she’s set herself up in some kind of advisory capacity to Anton, because Callum doesn’t bother trying to get her to do anything other than hang around near him.
Noticing the drone swarm headed towards the building, Anton turns and says something to a member of his unit who wasn’t listening to either officer- one of his engineers, I’d guess. It looks to be a woman, uncomfortable in heavy armor, with streams of data flowing around her like ethereal blue ribbons. She raises an eyebrow, then nods, and brings up a series of holo-screens, manipulating them like an opera conductor with a baton.
“Professor, who’s that, and what is it you think they’re up to?” Bryant asks.
“The young woman is Minako Konishi, forty-ninth in the line of the Silent Sage, a researcher whose contributions to the design of the brainband proved critical, as were his later contributions to the Imperial war effort, when he saw how his creation had been misused by the Warlords. He preferred intangible, digital weaponry, a stark contrast to the Peregrine Commander’s material, mechanical expertise.”
“So you’d say it’s likely Konishi is trying to disrupt the Komodo Unit’s drones somehow?”
“Yes, it seems so.”
That was more or less my guess as well, although I’d have taken fewer words to say it. Van Horn also seems to have gone out of his way to avoid even saying Anton’s name, as if acknowledging the fact of someone with no family name leading a unit at the Citadel would be distasteful to him. Before I can point that out to either of my companions, however, Baxter speaks again.
“Let’s talk about the Peregrine Commander for a minute. His Founder’s story is a pretty extraordinary one. A science officer aboard an Imperium cruiser, who was unexpectedly put in a command position after her superiors were incapacitated, but proved herself an incredibly competent strategist.”
“Yes, the Starhammer. Her true genius was, of course, in the realm of engineering, and some suggest that she resented being forced to take on a leadership role. However, the strategists who she replaced had refused to allow the deployment of her experimental weaponry, which eventually turned the tide of the campaign for the Modron System, after she took command.”
“And do you think Anton here has what it takes to pull off a repeat performance of that feat?”
“It’s hard to say,” the professor replies. “My advice to him would be to dismiss the notion of competing with his fellow commanders on a strategic level, and instead focus all his efforts on developing weapons technology that would account for his tactical deficit.”
Surprisingly sound advice, but it’s coming a little late to help Anton here. From where I’m sitting, it seems pretty obvious to me that he went into this fight without much of a plan, and certainly not any kind of trump card in terms of a secret superweapon. As to why not, well, it’s difficult to say- but I suspect it’s ultimately just a character flaw. He’s not a particularly serious or driven person, because he’s got nothing to fight for. Hark, Starling and I are all highly ambitious, though personally I think I’ve got better reason to be than either of the other two. Anton, however, couldn’t care less about being a unit commander, or even being a Noble at all.
When the feed cuts back to the Komodos, Hark has taken charge, clearly barking out orders, although not audibly. The broadcast doesn’t include audio for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that people tend to say some very unsavory things when they’ve been shot, which aren’t considered fit for the ears of the Imperium at large. Even if they were broadcasting sound, it wouldn’t matter, because Hark is giving her orders via brainband, the main sign that she’s speaking at all being her sharp, forceful hand gestures. Not for the first time, and likely not the last, I’m struck with a bit of cognitive dissonance over the gap between her apparent age and the way she behaves. I’m a decade older than her, and I can’t help but feel like she looks more like a professional commander than I do.
Moving with practiced precision, in a stark contrast to the Peregrines, Hark’s people move out. To my surprise, and no doubt to Anton’s, they don’t fan out to the left and right to take the side entrances to the compound. Instead, they head straight up the stairs in front of them, towards the front of the fortress, which has no visible entrances. Hark stays in place, accompanied by one of her intel people, who has a sphere of holo-screens surrounding her that seems to be displaying the visual feeds from every member of the unit, as well as their vitals and other pertinent information.
Once they’re close enough to the wall that the Peregrines won’t be able to see them through the window, the Komodos do split up. One group heads to the right, one to the left, but one of them stays in place, and starts clearing away sand on a specific spot on the ground. After a few moments, it becomes clear that they’ve uncovered a hatch, which one of them, the effortlessly confident swordswoman called Scáthach, pries open. She jumps down without hesitating, followed by two others, a woman with brightly-colored hunter’s tattoos on her face, and Vang, the drone specialist.
“Oho!” Bryant cries. “It appears that the Komodos have located a secret route inside of the enemy fort! Seems the Peregrines were unsuccessful in their attempt to disrupt the enemy drones before they could scout out the terrain. Unfortunately, it seems we don’t have cameras in those tunnels, so let’s head to the aerial cam to see where all these Komodo teams are headed.”
At the boisterous announcer’s command, the camera zooms way out, until the individual Nobles on the ground are barely visible. On the screen, colored dots appear to indicate their locations, steel-gray for the Komodos, brown for the Peregrines. Most of Anton’s combat team seems to be posted up near the main entrances to the building, doors which have a limited line of sight to the outdoor paths leading towards them. However, Lucia’s people aren’t taking those paths, on either side. Instead, they appear to be taking hidden routes through the stone walls surrounding the exterior of the building. It won’t get them inside like the hidden tunnel, but it does look like it’ll allow them to get close to the doors without being spotted by Peregrines, so long as they stick close to the walls.
Casales, predictably, is leading one of the strike teams, taking the east-side entrance. Xquenda, the Jade Knight, appears to be leading the other. The west-side team has a much better route, with the wall providing cover right up until they’re at the door, while the east-side path still leaves several yards of open space with minimal cover where the Peregrines will be able to see them coming. Presumably that’s why Casales is taking point there, along with Stoddard and Okorie, among others.
Dividing your unit up into teams is more of a challenge for commanders than I’d anticipated, mainly because only about a third of your unit are actually combat specialists. That means the main objective is to balance out the more competent warriors with those who barely know which end of the rifle is meant to point forward. From what I can tell, Hark’s done a pretty good job of it. Anton, on the other hand, doesn’t have to worry about it as much, because he’s got seven combat specialists in his unit, two more than Lucia or I, plus Callum, who’s a competent fighter in his own right. What he lacks in tactical prowess and motivation, he can make up for with sheer force.
“Is it typical for the design of a War Games battlefield to include hidden passages like this?” Baxter asks, as the two strike teams slowly advance towards the doors of the fortress.
“Very much so,” replies Van Horn. “These exercises are meant to reward ingenuity and perceptiveness. Lucia and her unit have done well to identify those pathways, though of course they’d be well-served to remember that such things don’t always exist in the real world.”
Hearing that, I turn to Sofie and raise an eyebrow. She nods, indicating she understands my unspoken implication. We’re gonna need to make sure we can identify those same secret pathways on our own battlefield, when the time comes. There should be plenty of time tomorrow to figure out how we’re gonna do that, even without a swarm of miniature drones hidden inside the body of one of our unit’s members.
“Contact!”
The exclamation startles me, and I’ve got my sidearm halfway out of its holster before I realize that it was Bryant, exultantly announcing that one of Lucia’s teams has engaged the enemy. To my right, Niko reacted similarly, drawing a knife from an ankle sheath and flipping it up to hold the blade between his fingers, ready to hurl at the nearest enemy.
Around us, and on the other side of the agora, a number of people appear to have done the same thing as Niko and I. Most of them drew or reached for guns and knives, though I spot a few with stun batons, and even one grenade. Everybody who actually drew has to put their weapons away sheepishly, while I get to play it off a little more casually.
On the screen, the camera’s zoomed back in to show the west-side Komodo strike team engaging the Peregrines’ defenders, who seem to have been thrown into disarray by the unexpected arrival of an enemy force. Xquenda managed to bring her people around without alerting the Peregrines manning the perimeter, hugging the wall until the very last moment, then kicking open the door and attacking without warning.
Wisely, the Komodos open with a grenade, waiting until it detonates to enter. One of the brown dots indicating the Peregrines’ positions blinks out, suggesting that they managed to eliminate at least one person with that. However, as they enter, one of them has the misfortune to trigger a hidden mine, which detonates instantly, firing a pressurized blast of liquid nitrogen directly upwards, and freezing the lower half of the unfortunate Komodo’s body solid. A text box appears identifying her as Lori Zainabu, a Noble of the line of Ludolf Steuben, the Lord of the Labyrinth, an architect who designed the Imperial Palace, as well as several major capital cities across the Imperium. Impressive, but evidently also wholly lacking in combat prowess, and there’s only so much that training can provide. The Komodo Unit has, on balance, more top-quality Nobles than my Gazelles, but clearly they’ve got some stinkers as well.
None of the rest of Xquenda’s team so much as flinches, as Zainabu topples backwards and literally snaps in two, the frozen lower half of her body disconnecting from the upper half. To her credit, she has the presence of mind to pull her own plug immediately, saving herself an excruciating death from blood loss, and her dot disappears from the miniature tracking map in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, marking the first death of this battle for the Komodos.
“An eye for an eye, but this battle isn’t over yet,” Baxter comments. As he speaks, the Komodos push forward into the room, firing on anything that moves. Of course, the Peregrines were hardly just milling around, waiting to be shot. Bloody chunks of flesh are strewn about everywhere from the grenade’s detonation, but behind large metal crates and panels crouch Anton’s combat team, firing on the attacking Komodos. Rather than concentrating fire on a single target, they seem disorganized, each prioritizing whoever first caught their eye, and as a result, failing to take down anybody in the crucial first few seconds of the firefight.
One of the Peregrines in particular sticks out to me- a guy who appears to have a wide, oversized mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, which he’s got bared at the Komodos who he’s firing at. His profile identifies him as Armel, a Noble in the line of someone known as the Ravenous. Curious, I search the title on the brainband, and discover the charming fact that his Founder was mainly known for ritually consuming the corpses of his enemies after a battle. That seems rather wasteful, considering any edible meat would qualify as viable biomass to be recycled and processed for the purpose of creating more bodies, but then again, the intimidation factor of his enemies knowing he was that sort of person was probably significant.
As they push forward into the room, some of the Komodos deploy personal shields, the metal barriers absorbing incoming enemy fire while they shoot back from relative safety. It quickly becomes a battle of inches, as the Komodos slowly advance, and the Peregrines find themselves with nowhere to go. Eventually, one of them- a wiry guy who I’m pretty sure is a part of the Peregrine intelligence team, who the holo-screen identifies as Soo-Jin Choi -decides to make a break for it. As soon as he darts out from behind cover, the Komodos all swivel and train their rifles on him, multiple bursts of fire shredding his armor and dropping him in an instant.
After that, the defensive line essentially breaks. With two of their team down, the Peregrines no longer have the firepower to hold the Komodos back, and those who remain get cut down quickly, inflicting no casualties in return. All told, the Peregrines have lost five of their people, a third of their total force.
“Very interesting,” Bryant comments. “Let’s see what that other team is up to.”
No sooner has the feed cut to Hector’s team, do they make a break for it, bursting out from behind the wall they were hugging, to dead-sprint towards the door to the fort, about fifty yards away. Portable shields are too heavy to hold while making that dash, and advancing in a phalanx would leave them vulnerable to grenades, so they’ve got little choice but to run, even knowing one or more of them is almost certain to get cut down during the charge. Or they would be, if anybody was shooting.
To my surprise, and clearly that of the Komodos, nobody fires on them. When Casales rams open the doors with a steel-bending shoulder-check, it’s to find an empty room, not a single Peregrine defender to be found. Immediately, they switch to a defensive formation, with Whitehall, the blue-haired rabbit-eared intelligence specialist taking the lead to scan for hidden traps. When she finds none, they advance cautiously, into a narrow corridor.
“Now this is an unexpected turn of events. Has order broken down completely in the ranks? Have the Peregrines abandoned their posts? Or is something else entirely going on here?”
Moments after Bryant finishes speaking, the answer is revealed, as a pair of force-walls spring up at either end of the hallway. Transparent, the glowing blue barriers prevent the Komodos from advancing any further. From the far end of the hallway, on the other side of the force-wall, emerges Singh, the literally hot-headed Peregrine combat officer. Immediately, the Komodos open fire, only for their bullets to hit the force-wall and freeze in place, their forward momentum drained. Singh laughs, and says something only the people in the room can hear, though context clues suggest it was disparaging, before signaling the rest of her team to enter the hallway. They do so with their rifles raised, and as soon as they’ve got the Komodos in their sights, they open fire as well. This time, however, their bullets pass through the barrier unimpeded, one of them striking Whitehall in the neck and taking her out instantly. A second later, the rest of the team deploys their shields, protecting against the onslaught for now- but that can’t last forever, not while they’ve got no way to retreat and regroup.
“Wow! What a smart move on the Peregrines’ part! Who do you think is responsible for this, Professor?”
“If I had to hazard a guess, it would have to be… him,” Van Horn says, voice dripping with distaste. To indicate who he means, the screen provides a text box on the Noble in question, a guy by the name of Emanoil. His lack of a family name is probably less than half of the reason for the professor’s scorn, though. He’s the least human-looking person I’ve seen in my entire life. His spine is probably twice as long as the average, giving him a hunched-over appearance that fits with his bizarre upper body, from his crooked, spindly arms with elongated, talon-like digits to his face, which has to be fifty percent teeth by volume. Metal plating covers his entire body, and it seems to all be grafted on, not merely armor attached for this particular battle. If I saw him in any other context, I’d assume he was some kind of depraved science experiment, not a Noble- but then again, only a Noble could conceivably get away with looking like that on purpose. Anybody else would be ostracized for daring to deviate from the baseline human biological design so brazenly.
The file indicates that his Founder was called the Skinshaper, fittingly enough, and a quick brainband search reveals that he was infamous for pushing the limits of the physical form, typically in the creation of specialized task-bodies, designed to be used for one specific purpose or another, generally some form of manual labor. Even he never pushed things quite as far as the latest Noble of his line has done, though.
“I see,” Baxter replies, suddenly seeming eager to change the subject. “Let’s check up on what that other team is doing.”
Once again, they cut away, and once again, it’s right into the action. Xquenda’s team has also encountered some setbacks, this time in the form of one man. He’s massive, wearing no visible armor, though the way that bullets don’t seem to slow him down in the slightest suggests that he’s got extensive subdermal plating beneath his red-and-black patterned skin. The text box that pops up next to him helpfully provides his name as Dragan, his Founder as the Apocalypse Knight, and as he grabs one of the Komodos and tears their head straight off their shoulders, I put him at the very top of my list of people at the Citadel not to piss off.
“Fuck,” Sofie whispers, and all I can do is nod in silent agreement.
Xquenda shouts something to her team, probably along the lines of ‘fall back,’ and they comply without complaint, ceasing fire to retreat back down the hallway. She, however, steps up, slinging her rifle over her shoulder and reaching to her hip to draw another weapon- a machete. Pointing it at him, she flicks a switch on the hilt, and the blade’s edge immediately turns white-hot, heating units concealed within bringing it up to incredible temperatures in seconds.
Dragan laughs, and spreads his arms wide, inviting her to attack. Kimimela complies, lunging forward to slash the machete across his chest, leaving a deep gash that cauterizes almost immediately, revealing the thick metal beneath his skin. If Dragan feels any pain, he doesn’t show it, retaliating with a powerful punch that knocks Xquenda back several feet.
Before she can get back up, Dragan is on her, ready to bring a foot down, probably with enough force to stomp right through her chest. Instead of attempting to avoid it, the Jade Knight drives her machete through his ankle and twists it around, severing the foot completely. It drops to the ground next to her, and Dragan stumbles back, still showing no sign of feeling pain, but clearly disoriented nonetheless. As Kimimela gets back on her feet, he slams the stump against the ground a few times, getting used to his new, unbalanced gait, then lumbers toward her with frightening speed.
“This is shaping up to be a real clash of the titans,” Baxter notes excitedly.
“Quite so. Knight versus Knight.”
Kimimela takes a swing at Dragan, but he claps his palms together around the blade and pulls away, trying to yank it out of her hands. She holds firm, and they play tug-of-war for a few moments. Clearly, Dragan is unbothered by holding the searing-hot blade in his hands, but as his flesh starts to liquefy, it lubricates the weapon and allows Xquenda to slip it from his grip, before slashing it out across his face, directly through both his eyes.
Even without sound, I can hear Dragan’s primal roar of fury, only for it to be abruptly cut short, as Xquenda thrusts the machete through his neck, and swiftly jerks it up, splitting his skull in two. For a few moments, Dragan flails around wildly, before hitting the ground and falling still.
The Jade Knight goes still for a moment as well, breathing heavily. Then she rallies, turning off the machete’s heating coils and sheathing it, then signaling her team to emerge from hiding.
“That,” Bryant says, as the remaining Komodos step over Dragan’s body and continue to advance through the hallway, “was one of the most impressive displays I’ve ever seen during the War Games. Don’t you think, Professor?”
“Absolutely,” Van Horn concurs. “The Apocalypse Knight line is feared across the Imperium, but this is a blow I suspect it won’t soon recover from.”
Inwardly, I groan. Talk like that is just going to get Dragan to become even more brutal and vicious than before, in an attempt to repair the supposedly-damaged prestige of his line, which is already famous exclusively for being vicious and brutal. Worse still, the Peregrines are likely to be our next opponents, meaning we’ll be the ones bearing the full brunt of his fury at a wounded ego.
“You see that?” I ask Niko, who still has one eye on his palm-screen.
“Sure did. Markets wavered there for a second, but they’re stabilizing as we speak.”
“Oh, put that thing away,” Sofie says, sounding a little bit annoyed. “You’re not gonna make any more money by staring at it the whole time.”
“…sorry,” Niko says after a minute, chastened. He turns the palm-screen off and leans in a little closer to me, focusing his attention on the big screen instead. I drape my tail over his shoulder, glad to have him back with us.
While we were talking, the feed switched back over to the east-side team, still pinned down in the hallway. They still seem to be holding out, but at least one more of them has gone down since we looked away. Casales and his people have formed a sort of wall around Okorie, the many-armed engineer, who looks to be cooking up a makeshift device that I suspect is meant to pierce the force-wall. However, the shields they’re using to protect him are looking increasingly battered, and not just from bullets. As we watch, Singh lobs an incendiary grenade through the barrier, and it ignites against the shields, not exactly burning through, but stripping away another layer before flaming out.
Suddenly, salvation for the Komodos appears, in the form of Scáthach and her infiltration team. They approach from behind the Peregrines, opening with a fragmentation grenade that shreds their armor, and following up with some precise shooting that takes advantage of the confusion to make up for their lack of numbers. It’s three on five, but they’ve got the element of surprise, and within seconds, Singh and her people are lying dead.
After the dust has settled, Casales has his people drop their shields, and Okorie steps forward, pressing his device to the force-wall with one of his many mechanical arms. It pulses with light for a moment, then shorts the barrier out, allowing the strike team to pass through, where they exchange a few quick words with Scáthach’s people, before heading deeper into the fortress together.
Though it was hard to see anything too specific during the chaotic firefight, I did notice some good shooting from the tattooed woman who caught my eye earlier. The info file gives her name as Ea, her Founder known as the Relentless, a hunter who tracked his prey across worlds, sometimes spending years trailing a single target. She seems to be a part of the Komodo Unit’s intelligence team, but not unlike Callum, she can clearly handle herself in a fight quite well.
“By my count, only four members of the Komodo Unit have been eliminated so far, while the Peregrines have lost eleven,” Bryant points out. “Is it common for things to progress so quickly in a battle like this?”
“In my experience, Baxter, the War Games either go quite quickly, or agonizingly slowly. It seems we’re witnessing the former in this case.”
Indeed, as he speaks, the remaining Komodos in both strike teams are advancing on the command center of the fortress, where the remaining few Peregrines are holed up. They must be in contact over the brainband, because both groups stop outside the doors, with Okorie stepping forward on the west side to press a device to it. The screen shows what looks like thermal signatures, allowing them to identify the precise locations of the remaining Peregrines within the command center. Given their advantage in terms of numbers, it seems likely that they could just storm in and shoot anything that moves, but Hark’s far too by-the-book to ever approve that. Getting lax with protocol now would be a good way to end up snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so to speak.
Inside of the command center, Anton and his remaining advisors are in a defensive formation. Naess, the unarmoed woman in ill-fitting armor who seems to have Anton’s ear, is literally hiding behind him, as though she plans to use his stock frame as a shield when the Komodos storm in. The Peregrines’ leader looks displeased that things have gone so poorly, but not exactly surprised- judging by the way he’s holding his rifle, he’s already accepted the inevitable, and only plans to put up a fight for the sake of propriety.
Callum and Konishi, the other two Peregrines still standing, seem a little less discouraged. They can’t possibly be expecting to win, but each of them is covering a different entrance, perhaps hoping to take a few Komodos down with them, and show everybody watching that they’re a force to be reckoned with, despite their commander’s general incompetence. They might actually be able to take out a few enemy soldiers, too, since both entrances to the command center are rigged with traps. Stepping foot through either of those doorways would set off half a dozen different mines and other hidden traps.
Unfortunately for the Peregrines, the Komodo strike teams seem to be aware of the presence of those traps. Maybe Vang’s drones spotted them earlier, or perhaps they’re just inferring based on common sense. Either way, neither team makes a move to open the doors- instead, one person on each side, Ea on the east side, and Xquenda on the west, pulls out a rifle with an unusual design- one I recognize. These are penetrator rifles, which are designed to shoot straight through walls. Single-shot, with thermal imaging scopes, so as to facilitate acquiring targets you don’t have line-of-sight on.
The knight and the huntress gesture for their teams to stand back, as they hold the rifle almost straight to the surface of the door on each side. After a silent count of three, both of them fire, an oversized slug round punching a golf ball-sized hole in the door, and through the chests of both Konishi and Callum.
Looking startled, Anton swivels his rifle between both doors, as if unsure where the next attack will come from. While the shooters on both sides are reloading, Naess whispers something in his ear again, and his expression changes from confusion to resignation. Before Xquenda or Ea can fire again, he drops his rifle, and shouts something I can’t hear- but the meaning is obvious nonetheless.
Turning around to face the window, overlooking Hark’s miniature command center out on the sand, he shouts it again, banging on the glass in frustration. A bitter declaration of surrender. After a few moments, presumably during which the Komodos ask their leader if they should finish the job or not, they holster their weapons. Casales approaches the door, and shouts something through the hole that the penetrator round left.
Anton sighs, and brings up his palm-screen, tapping a few buttons that seem to disable the various traps set up around the doors. The possibility that his attempt at surrender is a bluff has already occurred to me, but the Komodos don’t seem very concerned as they kick the doors open and stride through. Anton probably isn’t stupid enough to pull a stunt like that, knowing there’s no way he could turn the tables on such a numerically superior force all by himself. All it would accomplish is making him look like a petty, spiteful liar in front of the entire Imperium. And while he might not care much about that, I suspect Naess is canny enough to have told him not to do it.
Indeed, as the two Komodo teams enter the command center, not a single one of the traps surrounding the doors activate. Casales strides toward the center of the room, and pulls a small baton from his belt, which expands when he presses a button on the side, a sharp spike emerging from one end. The Komodo combat chief drives that spike into the ground, and a moment later, a holographic flag featuring the Komodo Unit’s emblem appears on the other end, fluttering in a nonexistent breeze.
At the same time, Xquenda walks over to Anton and puts her hand on his shoulder from behind, marching him out of the room, followed by her team. Naess follows, looking displeased, as they bring the Peregrine commander all the way through the fortress, and out to where Hark is encamped.
Lucia steps out from behind the barrier that protected her throughout the match, and folds her arms behind her back when Anton approaches, looking like he’d prefer to be anywhere else. This isn’t exactly standard procedure, as I understand it- Hark probably told her people to bring him out here like this. It’s meant as a statement, showing people that she didn’t just win decisively, but that she’s capable of humbling the enemy before her.
All the remaining Komodos form up around Hark, looking stern, standing at attention. She extends a hand straight out, as if pretending to be unaware of the fact that Anton is a good foot or two taller than her. He stares at it, confused, for a few moments. Then, after closing his eyes momentarily, he bends down until he’s practically on one knee, to shake Hark’s hand. The symbolism is hard to miss.
“There you have it, everybody,” Bryant says, breaking a long silence. “The first round of this year’s War Games is over. A decisive victory for the Komodo Unit, led by Lucia Hark, proving that no matter her age, she’s not to be underestimated.”