Written by: Ben E. Benson

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/89886/bonsai-letters

Edited by: Admiral Fisher

It was the last minute — the very last minute — that Brinus was requested to join the top students in something of an honor: the student war games. It was the annual war games that each academy participated to compete in and a duel of the best students from each class.

He walked swiftly down the hall to the simulators, all knowing that he was late and already possibly looking bad. He was possibly late because of their last-minute decision to risk having Brinus join them. Who else would they choose? The game maker’s choice student was out on medical leave. Cassie commanded the group.

“Listen up! We don’t have much time. We’re eight minutes late, so get in and look like you know what you’re doing. You look good doing it. We’re the red team and are fighting blue team,” she said after Brinus entered the room.

Only two teams played the game. Both teams had seven members of various expertise. Brinus knew the people in his group; most higher-ranking students often had their credentials spread around with gossip.

There was Cassie, a mama bear figure that felt bigger than she looked at the way she demanded respect. Looking at her, anybody would know that she had seen things. Knowledge was nothing compared to her experience, except knowledge is the easier thing to learn.

Sam was an antimatter engineer. He was talented, but sometimes, when things went too correctly or his methods were working too well, his focus would waver, and then panic would ensue. He had good marks overall in the books. Yet, in a real situation, his battle performance needed determination of ability.

A guy named Tom was a planetary scientist who specialized in death worlds. He knew a thing or two about improvising tactics and being sneaky, but he didn’t play well with others and mostly kept to himself.

Smithers was a naval intelligence type who was skilled at the movements and positioning of ships in manners that provided excellent advantages. His knowledge of ships and payloads was impressive and invaluable to their small team.

Joe was medical in his expertise, an internal trauma surgeon. Not much was known about him, but there was no bad gossip either. He often seemed nervous with some ticks, mostly fidgeting with things — pens, pencils, coins, any small object — in his fingers. Nobody knew for sure if it was a display of his dexterity or it was a habit.

“Where’s our seventh member?” Brinus had asked after he rostered and internally sized up his teammates. Cassie stopped and faced the group just before the wide doors to the simulation room.

“He’s inside already.” Cassie punched in a code on the doors’ entry pad, and they parted for them.

The room was large and round, almost sterile. He looked aside from one of the twelve simulation chambers. They were half-dismantled for repairs and maintenance. At the center console stood another student. He turned and said hello.

“Goodbye.” He said, then just stood there. No one had seen him before, and he wasn’t human either. He was, for a lack of any other name Brinus knew of yet, a bird-person. The group stared at him while the bird stared back with a seemingly half-empty gaze.

Knautz had black feathers everywhere. He wore a blue scarf around his neck that matched the color of his uniform to keep his neck feathers in order, and another blue bandana on his head to keep order to what looked like an unruly mess of red and violet feathers jutting out from his head. His face had two large, round, dark eyes with gold rings in them and a beak much like a parrot but orange and gold at the sharp tip.

Brinus studied his group. He studied the bird. How Everyone worked with him would be the key. He didn’t have to worry about the birdman. Meeting enough characters already, he knew this one was cool.

Cassie spoke up. “Team, this is Knautz. He is a Larkoa that recently was found on a planet the Confederacy rescued from a genocide. He expressed interest in our academy and has been attending since. Knuaz has top marks. They are probably better than most of you. There is a caveat.”

Cassie introduced the team to him. one name and point of a finger at a time. Brinus nodded at him to acknowledge him while the others silently judged. New races sometimes weren’t accepted until proven to be obedient. “Say hello, Knautz.” Cassie told him.

“I hate you all already.” He squawked, sounding like a large parrot repeating words rather than saying something original. The group took offense; Brinus took humor and smiled. Cassie sighed and began to explain what he meant.

“Unfortunately, communication with the Larkoa is a mess. They each have their own unique speech, talking in riddles, talking in terms of food, or comparing things to animals nobody knows, some extremely literal, others extremely contextual, or in this case, speaking in opposites. He actually likes you all. Keep that in mind, and don’t think he’s a disadvantage; he has skills you’ll find very remarkable.”

Cassie turned to the center console and loaded the program that would be the battlegrounds for the skirmish. “The first bout is ship versus ship space combat. They will judge us on how we handle combat and work together. Win or lose, what we do matters most. There will be two support ships on our flanks to command.” The simulation booted, and after waiting for a brief moment, the system was ready. “Alright, red team, let’s get to it.” They each entered a simulation pod and entered the virtual world.

The Ships

They found themselves grouped on a transport moving them to their actual ship. It was a good chance to see the exterior of their vessel. Smithers commented on the class and make of the vessel.

“Whoa, it’s a class VI Shannon class warship. It’s top of the line; there’s only like... 6 of these in existence!” Smithers observed, taking in the sleek curves, large armaments, and advanced plated shielding. “Does it have a blitz drive?” Smithers jumped on the balls of feet with fully dilated pupils.

Cassie answered his question with a smile. “It certainly does. The armor has a blade arm, can hold an Anvilite shield, and is made of a dense metal alloy almost impervious to energy weaponry. It wasn’t used as the ship’s armor itself. The repulsing qualities would nullify and cancel out the flow of energy—including electricity—within the ship.”

It seemed like things were coming full circle. Brinus couldn’t help but notice one small thing about the ship.

“We’re red team, right?” He asked, and Cassie nodded.

“Yeah, why?”

“Oh, nothing... except the striping on our ship is pink.”

Cassie turned and took a hard look at it. She said, “Oh, uhm... yeah, it’s more magenta, isn’t it? It hasn’t been reset since the 8-team skirmish. The professors had as a celebration for this year’s student battle. They played tag, I heard it was fun.” It was of no consequence, but they could have at least cleaned up their alterations. Hopefully, the inside was in good condition.

So... the inside was not in good condition. The outside was patched up to make it space-worthy again, and work was done on every system of the ship. Optics...shot, antimatter chamber... overstressed with one cracked rod. The remaining wires and tubes lay about and spewed from the ceilings and walls like the ship had spilled its guts. The expressions on the team’s faces were abysmal, seeing that they were going to get a shiny new ship to work with. Cassie sighed loudly.

“Aaahhh shit.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “The professors really didn’t leave us much, did they?” Brinus was kicking parts out of his way to the operations console. He needed to know the condition of the core. The readout had a lot of items in red, some vital, some minor. Others were irredeemable. He memorized the information he needed, seeing as the engineering console near the core was inoperational.

“I’ll be in engineering, I guess. We should each get to our stations and focus on vital systems.”

“No shit Shimroi,” Knautz spoke out, saying a common human expression but using his own bird-culture figure. Brinus smiled amusedly.

Brinus found the secondary plasma feeder welded to the antimatter chamber exhaust. It was a baffling connection, and as such, it would be like spitting alcohol on an engine for a speed boost. He began with that, taking his plasma cutter to it. Sam joined him and began running diagnostics on the engineering console wires to his triquarter. He laughed a bit at the work ahead of him.

“This is insane. How long do you think we have?” He asked, and Brinus shrugged.

“My guess is that we have until the other team is ready. They haven’t checked in. They might be in a similar condition. The other team would rather be seen as late rather than admit they need repairs. Cassie already fucked up by checking us in. So I don’t know, maybe an hour?” Sam paused and realized that wasn’t enough time, and even then, it was merely a guess.

Reaching into his pocket, Brinus retrieved his vape. He took a long drag on it, letting it fill his lungs and give him relief, then let the smoke-free. Sam chuckled.

“Did... did you just vape in your own simulation pod? Jokes on you.”

“I know.” He replied and took another deep drag.

“Are you trying to hot-box it?”

“C’mon, Sam, consider it a tactical vape.” Only then did Brinus get back to his work.

The single cracked rod was removed from the core, and all six receptacles were replaced with new ones. The transmollifier was also replaced and even tweaked, with an extra coolant cell welded to be forced into place. It was certainly Brinus’s special touch on the system, and it bypassed rebuilding the entire secondary system.

They calibrated the coil accuracy, and the orbifold straightened it out, kissing it with another quick welding job so the weight of the ion manufacturer wouldn’t bend it so easily. In about 50 minutes, he was happy with his progress. The ship would fly alright. Whether it was stable was left up to the stress it would endure.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Sam had worked on the digital systems the best he could. Sometimes, a good pound of a fist somehow worked to get the system to come alive. Brinus wiped his forehead and put his shirt back on. Repairing the core was messy work, and he wasn’t keen on looking messy in front of Cassie. He respected her; she was very much a mama bear when it came to looking after her crew. Brinus knew she would take great risks and go great distances to keep them safe.

“There we are! All systems are glowing green!” Sam said with excitement. 85% of the core systems were repaired. The rest were not consequential, being more monitoring or a backup systems.

“Make a backup on the fluid systems. We’ll need the flexibility if shit hits the fan. We’re missing some hardware backups, and the system should break sooner rather than later.” Sam was confused.

“But it’s working.” And Brinus shook his head.

“We need all the systems checked to see if they’ll fail now. You want things to break before anything happens. During the fight, we could be dead. After the fight, we can’t get home, or worse, trying to escape and running.” Sam agreed and will remember that as a good rule to have.

Let the War Games Begin. They gathered on the bridge once Cassie let the crew know time was up. They had one hour and twelve minutes, and they did well with the time they were given. The crew stood at attention as Cassie took point. A light blipped on the console, signaling an incoming call, and she tapped it. On the main view screen, the other team and their leader appeared. They were Vendalfi with their navy blue fur and light blue paws and tails. They looked in order as can be. However, there were only five visible. Cassie addressed them.

“I’m Captain Cassie of the Confederate Student Academy.” The Vendalfi captain stepped forward.

“I am Captain Ehshon. It’ll be an honor to do battle with you. Prepare to engage.” The transmission cut, and immediately, the lead ship and its own two support vessels began to fire long-range ion missiles, all coming straight for them.

“Bastards!” Cassie shouted. “They had two crew members ready to fire to catch us off guard. Stations now!” Everyone scrambled, and Brinus and Sam took off to engineering. In the hallway, Brinus and Sam made their way as quickly as they could. Brinus’s senses lit up, and he couldn’t help but stop. Sam stopped as well and asked.

“What’s up, Brinus?”

“Brace for impact!” He could feel the shift in gravity, however minuscule it was, and the coming ion missiles cast off delta radiation. Sure enough, the ship sustained the impact. Most of it was siphoned and dispersed by the energy shielding, but some made its way to impact the hull.

Engineering was alight with warnings and damaged systems. “Sam, keep on that console and keep the fluid systems in line. I got a fused conduit in section J!”

“I’m on it.” Sam’s fingers danced across the display, and Brinus couldn’t possibly get his tool belt on fast enough. He slid down the ladder and used his plasma decoupler to cut, strip, and solder a new connection for the conduit.

“These damned new ships are just too sensitive!” He cursed.

The bridge crew was frantically trying to keep up with the bombardment. Smithers finished a deep scan of the enemy ship at least and evaluated their payload.

“Their weapons are mostly high-energy bursts. They have one large spine-mounted cannon. It’s currently charging and will need a few minutes before they can fire it. They’re keeping us disrupted until they can.” Cassie barked new orders.

“Deploy the Anvilite shield; it’ll absorb all this excess energy.” Cassie hit the communicator for engineering. “Brinus, we’re going to use the blitz drive. Can you give us some power?”

“I’m on it!” Brinus hurried back up the ladder and went to a tool closet. Inside, he grabbed two mass hammers, a technological equivalent to a sledgehammer. He gave one to Sam. “Go to that coolant canister there, and on my mark, start pounding on it.” Sam stood confused. “Just do it!”

He got into position and was ready with the hammer. Brinus hit the console to engage the overclock and rushed to the secondary coolant canister. “Now, Sam! Start swinging!” They did, and the sound of the metal on the pounding hammer was deafening. “Now, Cassie!” He yelled to the bridge.

Knautz saw the opening between the two advancing enemy support ships and threaded the needle between them, both with a brief burst of warp speed and a calculated twist and roll. They were through nose to nose with the Vendalfi ship. The Anvilite shield absorbed all of the energy blasts along the way and glowed warm. With another twist of the ship, the armed shield bashed the enemy ship, breaking through their energy shields and buckling their front left armor plating. The battle had become a fistfight when the Vendalfi took a swing of their own.

Their melee attack was a hard half-dome at the end of a piston, and it hit the Anvilite shield square on. It was a titanic impact, and sparks exploded from the contact point. The Anvilite shield was now cracked and wouldn’t endure a second blow. Cassie gave a bold order.

“Deploy the katana, cut that piston off!” Knautz, once again with a keen eye and quick thinking, rolled the ship to the port side. The enormous blade whipped around from the starboard, connecting at just the right time. It sliced through the shaft of the piston. “Support ship two, grapple that piston, and get their support disabled!”

“Yes, captain!”

Ship two fired off its tow tether, and it had looped around the heavy dome piston, keeping the weapon away from their main ship and from any further use. With the new weapon, ship two swung it like a mace and crushed one of the enemy support ships with it. Cassie radioed ship one.

“Ship one, flank their starboard... ship one!? Do you read!?” They were disabled, and Cassie hadn’t even noticed. Smithers shook his head.

“They’re dead in the water, Captain!”

“Alright, it’s two on two now.”

Brinus stopped pounding on the canister. “Sam, you can stop!” He commanded. He dropped the hammer and rushed to the central console with Brinus. “Good work!”

“What exactly did that do?” Sam asked.

“Going zero to warp makes too many coolant crystals form; we kept the system loose and free of blockage.” Sam was impressed.

“They don’t teach that at the academy.”

“Nah,” Brinus smiled. “A little trick I learned from my syndicate days.” His smile fell as soon as he felt it. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight, and his hair seemed to have been floating. “Shit...” he cursed and smashed the comm line. “Captain! They have a really big weapon about to go off!”

“We know!” She yelled back. “I need everything you got to forward shields!”

“Standby!” he advised and thought for a moment. There were very few options available, and his hair was standing straight up now. Then he remembered. The secondary plasma feeder was welded to the antimatter chamber exhaust. It was the first thing he had fixed, but maybe he shouldn’t have. It would pipe antimatter straight into the shield generator.

He immediately got to work, forgoing the ladder and hopping from the top platform of the antimatter chamber to the bottom. Be began torch-cutting the pipeline, and once it was loose, plasma from the secondary feed engulfed him. Sam saw it happen.

“Brinus!!!” He cried out, but he was ok. He lugged the feeder to the antimatter chamber exhaust and began welding. “Are you alright!?” Sam yelled.

“Perfectly fine!” He replied. “There! Hit it!” And Sam thrust the gauge for all power to go to forward shields.

“Brace for impact!” Cassie called over communications, and the cracked Anvilite shield was held tight.

With the brightness of a thousand blue suns, an intense beam weapon from the spine of the enemy ship slammed into their forward shields and the Anvilite shield. Knautz knew how to help. He let the ship surf the beam the best it could, riding it for several miles before he had the opportunity to jump off. They were far back but in one intact piece, alive. The Anvilite shield on its arm was molten white, and the solar winds blew it away like ash in the breeze. Forward energy shields were shot out as well, flickering like glitter.

“Status report Brinus.”

“Not looking good. We’re out of juice.” Sam looked surprised.

“Uh, Brinus? We have a problem.” Sam pointed to a display of the exhaust system. “The power filter is going to go critical.”

“They don’t go critical.”

“This one will. All the crystals we knocked loose, the back-routed plasma feeder, the blitz warp jump, it’s all piled up. We have like three minutes until it pops!” Brinus snapped his finger. Brinus’s Two Fingers

“I have an idea.” He hit the button for communications with the bridge. “Captain, we need like 3 minutes. Can you stall for time?”

“I’ll try.” She said with uncertainty. “Open a channel.”

The Vendalfi captain appeared on the screen. He spoke with a cool and collected tone, thinking he had won the fight.

“Have you considered your surrender?” He asked. “I’m willing to negotiate your survival. Both of your support ships are now disabled, and you seem to be disabled as well.” Cassie sighed.

“What are your terms?”

“Transfer to me and my crew 500,000 credits and we’ll spare you and your ship. Need I remind you that the safety protocols are turned off in this simulation? It would be a shame if you were to be hurt.” Cassie was astounded. There weren’t any real world consequences in a simulation, sure, but money was real. It would be humiliating.

“Let me consult my crew,” Cassie said.

“You may have one minute.” The call ended, and Cassie called Brinus.

“I hope you’re cooking up something good.” She wondered.

“Yep, just need one more minute.”

“Good because that’s all we got.”

Brinus and Sam were cutting it close. They were wheeling rolling cabinets of tools and stuffing them into an escape pod. In the back of that pod was the power filter, it was no larger than a basketball sizzling and vibrating with the potential power of an atom bomb.

“All the tools are made of Anvilite to absorb energy they may come in contact with, we’ll set the escape pod to head to them, and then boom! Hopefully it takes them out.” Brinus yelled over the comm. Sam was both smiling and worrying like crazy. Any moment they could blow up themselves. Cassie, however, loved the plan.

She called the Vendalfi back. “Captain Ehshon, we’re sending our payment to you by escape pod. We don’t have the means to contact the banks at the moment. Sorry for the inconvenience.” The Vendalfi captain smiled and chuckled with laughter. Tasting his victory was ever so sweet.

“Looks like the first bout of our skirmish goes to us. Better luck next time.”

The escape pod launched and made an arcing path towards the Vendalfi ship. It was quick, as escape pods should be, and drew nearer and nearer to its target. If the power filter goes off too soon, it could miss. If it goes off too late or not at all, they can get rid of it and start firing upon it.

“Oh, Captain,” Cassie got their enemy’s attention. “Next time, don’t be such a tool.” She cut the transmission and waited, and they waited. Everyone was just waiting, and perhaps the filter wasn’t going to go off at all. Their enemy’s remaining support ship intercepted the pod instead.

“Shit!” Cassie swore. “Smart bastards.” Everyone held their breath and continued to wait. Knautz spoke up.

“Captain? What isn’t your command?” It was probably the clearest thing he’s said yet. Cassie gripped the console before her tightly.

With a flash, the power filter erupted. It detonated and blew apart their support ship from the inside out. Their lead ship was spared from the initial blast. However, the Anvilite tools absorbed the energy from the explosion, shot outwards, and spread everywhere. They pierced through the enemy’s main ship, each tiny wrench, nut, and bolt ripping meters-wide holes through their hull and inner workings.

They had been made to resemble Swiss cheese, and the explosion looked like a big firework, with stars glimmering in every direction. The front window of Cassie’s ship was dotted with chips and little cracks. They sustained no further damage, though, aside from the shrapnel. Cassie was elated and opened a channel for talk.

“Captain, have you considered your own surrender?”

“You human bitch!” The Vendalfi captains cursed at her. “We will never surrender to you! You will have to destroy us first”

Smithers had heard enough. He had armed a torpedo to finish the job. Brinus had appeared and stopped his hand from pulling the trigger.

“It’s over Smithers. Remember, we’re being judged.” Smithers sighed.

“You’re right.” He said. “We have to be better. Better than them.”

After the War Games

The crew was lying on the soft carpeted floor of Cassie’s room. Being a top student had its perks, one of which was the ability to order room service. They couldn’t settle on any sort of celebratory meal, so snacks were ordered—lots and lots of sweet and salty snacks.

Smithers was plowing through the Cheeso’s and Fountain Brew. Cassie had ordered nachos, and Sam had dozens of his favorite candy bars, taking full advantage of it all being paid for. Brinus and Knautz were throwing grapes at each other from across the room. Each toss was met with a mouth to crunch down on the tangy projectile. Everybody was eating their post-battle nerves away listening to the low tunes of old rock ballads and laughing.

Cassie’s triquarter pinged with a notification. She stood up and announced.

“Results are in!” She opened the message and read it aloud. “The Red team’s score is...” She paused to tease. “91 of 100 points!” The group whooped and hollered. Brinus joined, pumping his fist. Knautz aimed a strategic grape to land in his mouth, causing him to gag for a second. Knautz laughed loudly, sounding like a duck. “There’s more,” Cassie said. “Blue team got a score of 88 points. It says here that points are not indicative of victory.”

The room went quiet, and they all realized the same thing. They only trailed them by 3 points. Both of their ships were technically disabled. Depending on how the skirmishes went, they could seemingly do better and fall behind in the score. It’s whether or not they win but how they win. Victory wasn’t good enough. Brinus was staring off into space; they would have to rely on much more than luck to win the skirmishes.

The tension in the room was palpable, palpable enough that Brinus didn’t notice Knautz had hit him in the cheek with a grape.