“It’s a big day, brother. Let’s kick some ass!” yelled Stenz as he walked into the planning room. Jehz looked up and smiled. It was still dark, pre-dawn but Jehz had been there for two hours already, unable to sleep, nervous at his first chance to lead since his time in Rejzik. Stenz, Jehz’s Number Two for the day’s war games exercise, was early as well; it would be three hours more before the rest of the squad were due. Stenz threw down his pack and turned to look at Jehz. “I want you to know that even though we were both up for this slot, I have no problem being your Number Two today, Jehz. After all that you and family have sacrificed for the Given, you deserve a chance to reclaim your position. It’s not your fault you were attacked on Hayim and then put on a shelf in Rejzik for a year, right? So just to clear the air here are no hard feelings, my time will come.”
Jehz smiled and hoped that Stenz meant what he said. He could really use a solid backup given how long he had been away. Stenz was older and more experienced than Jehz but his overall battle and evaluation scores were lower. An ideal Number Two in many ways, assuming he could accept it. Under the Musa rating system, Jehz would have been the slightly preferred candidate and it should not have been a surprise to anyone that he was awarded a command. Of course standard ratings weren’t universally followed and his higher rank didn’t stop the inevitable criticism among the young Musa officers that the “Priest”, as Jehz was now often referred to in some quarters, had traded on his father’s credentials again to score a preferred assignment.
Stenz has heard all the comments and rumors, everything from the idea that it had been proven Jehz had been possessed by an alien to the suggestion that he had become a Rija Wander but had been allowed back into the Musa because of what happened on Hayim and how it must have messed up his mind. He had no idea what the truth was about Jehz’ time at Rezjik, but he seemed like the same old Jehz to him. He kept his head down, worked hard, and was a solid if unspectacular leader worthy of respect. Stenz knew there were many Musa, including his best friend Allz, who felt differently and exhibited an almost irrational hatred of Jehz. Allz also happened to be the commander for the other battle unit today, and had been boasting for weeks how he would crush Jehz on the battlefield.
Allz boasted about nearly everything but somehow this seemed different. He had noticed Allz spending a lot of time preparing with the tech crew before the mission, something he had never done before. In fact, Allz was usually outspoken and negative about the Given focus and reliance on tech superiority over its adversaries to ensure victory. He felt this strategy was badly misguided and that what they really needed to do was to focus on developing capable leaders, leaders like himself of course. He was aggressive and brash and tended to be very dismissive of other leadership styles, especially the quieter kind that prevailed among the tech crews. They had heard his boasting about being able to defeat his enemies even without the fancy “toys” many times and Stenz knew they were annoyed by it. So what did they have that had interested Allz so deeply and what could he have possibly promised the tech crew to persuade them to look past his long line of previous insults? Stenz couldn’t imagine but suspected within lay the key to his battle plans for the war game.
At the planning center for the opposing Blue squad, Allz jumped angrily up as soon as Sooz walked in the door.
“You were supposed to be here an hour ago,” said Allz. “Where were you?”
“Take it easy, Allz, I just had to put the finishing touches on your hack. I know you don’t understand much about this stuff, but it was not easy to do.”
“Are you sure it will work then? It better or you are going to wish…”
“It will work, Allz. Guaranteed. I tested it myself.”
“As if that has stopped all the previous equipment failures you jokers are responsible for, right? I feel soooo much better now, Sooz. Thanks for telling me that.” said Allz sarcastically.
“Look Allz, if you don’t believe me, then don’t use it. I don’t need the hassle anyway. I was just trying to help you out.”
“Ha, that’s pretty funny. It didn’t have anything to do with that little prize I offered you did it, Sooz? A little gadget like that must be the equivalent of a Tyrolian concubine in your mixed-up world, am I right? Acquiring that wasn’t the easiest thing in the world either, but somehow I managed to keep my half of the bargain without threatening the entire mission.”
“Look, Allz, I’m sorry, OK, there were some unexpected surprises. I didn’t have much time with the equipment, there were other techs around when they weren’t supposed to be, things happened. But I got it done. Why do you want to do this anyway, swapping the location readings of the Red squad and their robots in the central computer isn’t going to get you much of an advantage in the games.”
“Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. Let’s just say I have someone on the Red squad I need to teach a lesson to.”
“Whatever, so when am I getting those comm units then?” Allz had somehow been able to steal two Adressian comm units from the tech repository and that was the only reason Sooz had considered helping Allz. Sooz had studied them in school, knew they were able to somehow communicate without emitting any readable signals. No one had ever been able to figure out how they worked and the Adressians had continued to be less than agreeable partners, telling some story about how they were test units that were only fully understood by an engineer that had been killed in the Given invasion. If he could figure it out and copy the design, he would be a hero and his rise to the top of the Musa tech organization would be pretty much locked in. The Illuta jerks that were always dismissing his proposals for improvements and prototypes would look like fools and that would make the Musa leadership even happier. He hated Allz, but when he offered this deal for a modest location hack to play some kind of stupid trick, he had to take it. Sooz knew he couldn’t be caught as the signal swap was untraceable and would eventually be overridden by the internal audit system, so no one would get hurt and in return he would have the chance of a lifetime. Sooz couldn’t believe Allz’s stupidity in making this deal. That Adressian unit was almost priceless and even a sharp tech cadet could have pulled this hack off, not that he wanted Allz to know that. Allz might have even been able to do it himself if he paid attention in class once in a while.
“Once you show me how this works, you’ll get the first one. After the games are over, and we’ve crushed the Reds, you’ll get the second.”
“What if you don’t make it?” asked Sooz, “You wouldn’t be the first Musa to sacrifice in a war game.”
“This is only a Level 2, so I don’t think there’s any chance of that happening. But if it pleases your little metal tech heart, how ‘bout we do this. I’ll send a message to my Central right now with my last wishes. If I die, there will be a section in there for you that will give you the location. We’ve been friendly enough recently so no one will even think twice about it being included. I’m sending you the crypt key now, so you’ll have your guarantee. Are you happy?” said Allz.
“That will do,” responded Sooz surprised that Allz seemed to have planned this out. Maybe he wasn’t as stupid as they all thought he was.
“Good. Now show me how this damn thing works.”
The games had begun with each side given the simple enough mission to attack and capture the other. The battlefield was a series of high elevation plains with foothills running through the middle, effectively separating the two sides from each other. Jehz had decided that after the start, he would immediately lead his troops to the highest foothill about 7 miles away and gain the strategic position. Stenz and his soldiers would cover for him nearby should they lose the fight to reach the hilltop and need to retreat. Their robot unit would be positioned at the low point in the hills. It was an obvious attack location and could be easily defended by the relatively immobile robots used in the games. Once the battle was underway, Jehz rallied his troops to quickly make their high ground. He felt that was a very logical choice for the Blue side as well, given their starting point so whoever got there first was likely to have an overwhelming advantage. As he crossed the halfway point to the ridge, he opened a comm link to Stenz, who had the only allowed Sensor computer that could be used for tracking their opponent’s whereabouts.
“Are they beating us, Stenz? It seems like they have an easier path to the top. If they are ahead, maybe we should angle to the formations a bit below them. They seem easy to defend and we may be able to surprise them from there.”
“It’s strange, Jehz, but it looks like they have barely moved, other than to send a small group to a secure defense position. I’m not sure what Allz is doing here, it’s not like him to hang back. Maybe they are having some kind of equipment trouble. Even if he starts moving now, he has no shot at the ridge top. It’s yours.”
“Should we move out, Allz?” asked his Number Two Renz. “We are easy targets here.”
“Almost, let’s allow them to settle into their positions, then we are going dark and heading to the secure point we have set up. At the same time we’ll release Strike Team 2 to climb up the back ridge. I want to give them a head start to get above the Red position without being seen before our dark time ends. I knew Jehz couldn’t resist going for it, he is so predictable.”
It was an unorthodox strategy, especially for Allz, thought Renz, but there was a chance it might work. He was definitely planning differently for this trial and that gave them a chance to shake a commander like Jehz, who typically played things very conservatively, into making a mistake.
After a few minutes, Allz gave the order to go dark, which meant his Sensor screen, and all comm units were shut down. Neither team would be able to see the other during this period though allotted dark time was limited. As the team moved toward the secure point, Allz asked Renz for the Sensor screen. This responsibility was typically taken by the Number Two commander, but Allz explained that he was worried that a surprise attack would separate them and he needed the exact enemy positioning the Sensor relayed to execute the next phase. Renz thought the reason was a little strange given the low likelihood of an attack on this outlying position, but he had heard of commanders wanting to run their own Sensor before so he didn’t think very much of it and handed it over.
Arriving at the secure camp, Allz immediately gave word to lift the dark order and switched on his Sensor. After following Sooz’ instructions and waiting for the hack to take effect, it now appeared as if the Red team robots were at the high point on the ridge that and Jehz’s squad was the grouping at the bottom.
“Renz, come look at this,” Allz said holding out the sensor. Renz moved headed over and took the Sensor screen from Allz in amazement.
“Why would Jehz move down the ridge like that?” Renz said, “It makes no sense, he already had the best position for a standard tactical fight.”
“Maybe Jehz is trying to take lesson from us and has decided to mix it up a little. Or maybe he thinks we are going to try and break through at the bottom of the ridge and wants something stronger than the robots to hold the position.”
“It’s possible, what are we going to do now? There’s no point in having the strike team ambush a bunch of slow robots.”
“Let’s change the target then. We’ll use a couple of our rockets on the robot squad and clear a path for the strike team to drop down on Stenz instead. It looks like the team might be able to get behind them here,” Allz pointed to the map. If Strike Team 2 was able to get high enough, they could make it past the robot position and circle around to capture Stenz’s soldiers. After a rocket strike he would be expecting a frontal assault, not a rear stealth attack.
‘It seems a little high risk, sir,” said Renz, “Stenz has a well defensed position and the strike team will need a near perfect ambush if they are going to take them. How would we get the orders to Strike Team 2 anyway? They were told to keep all comm units off until they got a visual on our attack on the low end of the hills.”
“We can do it but we’ll need to time this perfectly. They must be near position now, but we’ll give them a few more minutes to be sure. Once the rocket shots are ready, we’ll signal their comm units and send their orders. That won’t give Stenz’s team enough time to determine which side the attack is coming from. We need to get those shots lined up now, Renz! See to it personally.”
Renz quickly ran to the back of the squad to ready the rockets. It didn’t make much sense to him to waste their limited rocket shots on the robot squad when the strike team could likely sneak by them anyway, but Allz often made unconventional moves that seemed to work out so maybe this one would too. Renz found the artillery soldiers at the back of the formation.
“Prepare two shots to be aimed at these coordinates immediately” his comm unit broadcasting the location of Jehz and his men. “These should be armed.”
“Can you confirm that, sir”, one of them said.
“Confimed, these rounds should be armed. Be ready to fire on Allz’s signal. Renz returned to Allz’s side and verified the order had been given.
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“Signal Strike Team 2 to move past their original position and get cover.”
Renz sent the message and turned back to Allz.
“All set, sir. Whenever you are ready.”
“Fire rockets!” yelled Allz, “and good riddance.”
Jehz’s soldiers reached the ridgetop and took defensive positions waiting for the ground attack he assumed had to be coming. He knew that Allz’s dark time had to be nearly over and figured they must have used that cover to move as close as they could unseen. Just as he was about to open a comm channel to Stenz, his unit lit up in emergency mode.
“What is it, Stenz, are they on the move?
“I wish it were that simple. I don’t know what’s going on but you have two armed rockets locked onto your position and about to fire. I’m guessing you have 20 seconds max to find cover. You need to move out right now Jehz! All team members are receiving the same notification so just get out of there. After they hit, then we’ll regroup and try to figure out what the hell is going on.”
Jehz jumped up to see if there were any caves or other natural structures where they could hide, but he knew it was no use. If those rockets were truly armed, it would be sheer luck if any of his thirty soldiers survived. As his team scrambled away to find what shelter they could, Jehz looked into the distance and saw the flare of the rockets jet trail begin moving across the valley floor.
Anger rose quickly inside him. How could anyone be so stupid as to confuse the positions of the robots and actual soldiers when it was clear as day on the Sensor?! He could not take his eyes off the rocket trails but knew he had to break away and at least try to survive. He tensed his legs to jump off the rock and the next thing he knew he was somehow floating fifty feet off the ground. Turning to look at the ground below and then the rockets closing in fast he instinctively held up his arms. A second later the rockets disintegrated in a massive explosion. He felt the shockwave wash over him and hoped he would not be knocked to the ground, but the force moved around him as if it were being redirected. He looked down again and saw most of his squad standing in the open, staring up at him with a mixture of relief and fear. Holding his arms out again in a way similar to what he had done when the rockets exploded, he stared at his hands. Had he possibly somehow done that by simply stretching his arms?
Looking off in the distance at the source of the rocket fire, he could barely make out the Red camp, but sensed they were reloading. He realized now he could hear their comm chatter softly in his ears and that confirmed they were scrambling to fire again. Why hadn’t they realized their mistake yet and how was he able to tap into their encrypted comm frequency? He closed his hands into fists and could feel the sensation of a wave of energy leaving his body. A fraction of a second later an enormous dust cloud began to rise up over the valley floor. Jehz focused on the soft sounds in his ears and heard the Red team yelling over the chaos and trying to dig out the survivors. Had he done that as well? He didn’t remember ordering a rocket shot though he would have been well within his rights to have done so. What was happening?
Jehz forced his mind to relax and his slowly sank to the ground, his hands tucked under his arms. Stenz and a couple other soldiers rushed over. Stenz knelt next to Jehz and grabbed his shoulders, eyes wide with amazement. “You saved our lives, Jehz! All of us. How in the universe of Voz did you do that?”
Jehz did not look up. Relieved to be alive, he was still deeply distressed at what he had done. He hadn’t really meant to do any of it. What if this uncontrollable force were to be unleashed on his own soldiers next? What if he couldn’t turn it off?”
“Stenz, you need to take me into custody immediately! I don’t know how I did this but I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I’m not sure I can control it.”
“What are you talking about Jehz?! You’re not going to hurt anyone. Whatever you did, that wasn’t random. You must have known somehow we were in danger. Or that force field somehow knew. You were lit up like a Cantaxian fireworks display on the Sensor, especially when you took that second shot, but the readings are back to normal now. Look at them. You are under control, there’s nothing wrong with trying to save your own life, whatever the means. How do you feel? Do you need a medic?”
“I don’t think so..I feel fine I guess so but..I didn’t mean to do it. How many dead?”
“From what we can see on the Sensor, it looks like there a number of injured but no casualties, and even if there were, they deserved it. Taking an armed rocket shot at live soldiers during a Level 2 exercise – someone is going to jail for this, and they are all going to get some seriously crappy ass grades. They’ll be shoveling shit on a Frezen galaxy backwater for two years after this fuckup. Jehz, I can’t believe it,” Stenz laughed almost uncontrollably, his relief quickly turning into a bitter anger at their betrayal. “You pinned them back against the cliff face they were using for cover with a twenty-foot wall of rock dug from the ground right in front of them. That was bad ass! That suit or whatever you call it is something else. We have to figure out how to make more of those. Did you know it could do that? Holy shit!
Given the unusual events that had transpired, the senior Musa officers monitoring the exercise ended it abruptly and quickly transported all soldiers involved for medical care or to be debriefed. Allz aggressively defended himself in his interview, claiming the Sensor had malfunctioned and given him the wrong readings and that Renz could confirm, which he did. The tech member who had set up the hack, however, quickly caved under questioning. There was no way he was going to jail or worse for a crazy man like Allz. He knew a deep dive forensic sweep by an Illuta specialist was likely to turn up signs of the hack. Maybe they could have all walked away from this mess if they had held their ground during questioning but Sooz wasn’t willing to take that chance, not after what happened. Even if that meant certain, maybe permanent, damage to his career.
Sooz swore to the Musa interviewers he had no idea that Allz would try to kill someone and played them recordings of conversations that he had taped to prove it. After the recordings were replayed and validated by the investigators, Allz was arrested and jailed. There would be no trial in a situation as closely monitored as this one and the judicial panel that met to review the evidence quickly found Allz guilty of attempted murder. The penalty for attempted murder in Musa society was death or permanent assignment to teams involved in high-risk military missions, of which there were plenty in the far-flung network of Given-controlled planets. The victim or family of the victim had the right to remove the possibility of death and even significantly affect the sentencing, though they rarely did.
***
A month later, the sentencing hearing was held at the main Musa courthouse. The gallery was filled to capacity given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the murder attempt and continuing rumors about Jehz’s powers. Jehz sat uneasily in the front row with the General at his side. In the very back, shortly before the doors had closed, a team of Rija, led by the Rejzik himself, had arrived and quietly taken their seats. Plainly clothed, clearly meaning to be as inconspicuous as possible, they were intent on taking in the spectacle firsthand. Due to the quality of the evidence against him, Allz’s team had decided to forego an extended procedural debate on the legal strength of the conviction that would only serve to make his client appear less sympathetic. They had all agreed that any lengthy review of the event details would be extremely unlikely to help his case. Instead, the defense decided to focus on the penalty phase, hoping they could perhaps sway Jehz and his family to spare their client with emotional arguments. It seemed like a longshot but there were indications in the personality profiles of Jehz’s family that suggested they might consider special emotional circumstances and impact the sentencing. It was the only chance they had. The presiding officer rang a signal bell to quiet the crowd and officially start the proceedings and then nodded to Allz’s team to begin. Allz’s main lawyer slowly rose to his feet.
“The massacre on Centon twelve years ago. Does anyone here remember it and the five hundred and fifty-seven Musa lives sacrificed? I’d guess without even looking into the faces in the audience that nearly everyone does. Before we come back to Centon, and I explain the personal significance of that day in my client’s life, let’s talk briefly about our collective purpose, our mission, for a minute. As we all know, it is a business of extreme risk. A business of exposing ourselves to danger every day in order to protect those we love and one that has seen many brothers and sisters pay the ultimate price. Too, too many. So many that no matter who you talk to, they will have a story of their loss, maybe more than one. Still, in spite of all that, in spite of the weight that we all carry and the constant sacrifice we risk, most remember that day. That’s how unusual it was.
“The units lost were stationed nearby here so many of you personally know someone directly affected, someone that continues to live with their loss and all that makes the memory even sharper and closer. Lt. Allz remembers that day better than most. For him, it was the day his parents were ripped away from him in a most devastating way, the day he was forced to be more of a soldier than we can expect any fourteen-year-old to be. As hard as it is to lose your loved ones, the honor of their sacrifice on a sacred field of battle sustains and inspires us as Musa. Their spirit drives us to reach higher and farther so that one day we can enter an era where our force guns are laid to rest, a deterrent held in reserve rather than an everyday tool that never leaves our hands. A Certan must always try harder to find that spirit. Much harder. It’s far too easy for them to resort to bitterness and that is why we rally around them to provide additional support. To try to replace some of the love they have lost, if only a small measure of it. It helps, yes, but we know deep down the Certan will never fully reclaim the love, hope, and pride that drives the rest of us. How can they?
How much harder still is it for a boy when the killer of your loved ones, your parents, was a friend to the ones he killed? Or so they thought, anyway, lied to and manipulated into believing the murderous deceptions of a coward. To have to live with the fact that your loved one wasn’t sacrificed honorably facing an opponent but instead stabbed coldly in the back by an enemy that hid in plain sight using guile and deception. To make it worse still if that’s even possible, that enemy was an alien working among us as a liaison, well known to many including this young boy. One who had visited the Given home world, toured the mighty Rejzik, was a guest in our homes. One of the Protected! How is a young boy to overcome all that? The lessons of sacrifice and support for our brothers and sisters we spend so much time studying offer very little to us in this case.
Musa have always fought alone, without help from protected peoples, and with good reason. Who else can we really trust, who else understands our mission but another Musa? Not even our brothers and sisters in the Given can ever really know what it is like to live the way we live. To live and breathe our purpose, one intertwined with death so that we may provide life to others. All Musa understand our self-reliance, know how important it is, but occasionally we are forced by circumstance to seek assistance. When that decision results in mass sacrifice, who is a child with a mother and father among the dead to blame? The Musa who approved this alien killer to walk among us? That would surely not be appropriate and acceptable as all Musa are taught to consider all mistakes our mistakes, to be learned from and used to improve the planning technique and strategy. It would not be proper Prazan.
“Would it not be natural then for a young boy struggling with that loss to blame the alien, become suspicious toward all aliens? Many among us who have suffered less at their hands feel that way if we are honest with ourselves and many have lost rank and position because of their inability to control it. So when someone enters our midst with the complicated circumstances that Jehz has, does it not raise suspicion and many questions? We know that it has. Jehz is a fine young officer from a highly decorated family but no one, including Jehz, knows what really happened to him. That’s what we are told anyway.
“Of course we trust our Rija leaders who say he is stable and that the brother that returned was the same one who left, but is there no grounds for suspicion for a reasonable person? Of course there is. For one who is in an excited state, could it easily go further than that? Allz made a terrible mistake, he knows that now, but no one was seriously hurt, thank Voz, and no one knows for sure if they would have been even if Jehz had not valiantly disarmed the situation. The question we have to ask is should Allz pay for this mistake with his life? Pay with his career, he knows he must start there and for a rising Musa officer like himself, that is surely a steep price, but his life?”
“Surely we must be able to see the extraordinary circumstances at work here and find some compassion and understanding for Allz. This situation is literally without precedent and requires a fresh approach to fairly resolve the conflict. Allz has already been dealt the heavy blow of disgracing the parents who died trying to provide him, and all of us, with a better life. Please let him try to rebuild some small portion of the honor he has lost rather than ending his family line over this tragic mistake. Thank you. The defense is concluded your honor.”
Jehz was allowed two weeks to consider his response and during that time had many long discussions with the General, his Rija advisors, and the soldiers in his squad on the ridgetop whose lives had also been in danger from Allz’s attack. Nearly every one of them advised Jehz to allow Allz to be executed. “He has abdicated his honor as a Musa and no possible role is left for him here. Even The Missions are too good for him. The fact that he would even want to live on under a cloud of disgrace tells you everything you need to know about this man.” He heard a version of these words over and over again but felt no one considered the price that Allz had paid in becoming a Certan. The weight of loss in the Musa world was meant to be carried quietly. Nearly all knew some version of it, so the burden was something to be carried alone and not given special focus or attention, but how many had gone through what through what Allz had? Surely it had changed him deeply and permanently and though the Certan program itself was a testament to the Musa acknowledgment of that fact, it had always seemed inadequate to Jehz.
Only his mother had asked what he really felt, deep in his heart, should be done with Allz. She did not try to sway him one way or the other, but instead tried to clear his mind of the influence weighing down on him. “You have every right to take your vengeance, my son, but make sure it is truly yours. Not the General’s or the brothers and sisters in squad. You need to try and separate their expectations and traditions from your desires, difficult as that may be to do. Allz was wrong, of course, deeply wrong, but there is a childlike and pervasive strain of fear in his actions. There was little benefit to him in this, no love interest or honor, none of the typical things that Musa hold so dear and are often willing to die for. Clearly there will be no political value to letting him live, no favors to accrue. His connections are in tatters, his mentors falling over themselves to see who can separate themselves more quickly. Not that you care about that, my son, I love that about you, but many do. Nearly all do if you want to get right down to it. Let that all go and quietly seek what is in your heart on this matter. Let him live or die, whatever the right path may be for you, but let it be your choice alone. You don’t owe Allz that, you owe it to yourself, my son.”
In the end Jehz felt that Allz had been caught up in a dark version of the same whirlwind he had after the events on Hayim. Undone by the questioning and controversy and confusion surrounding their experiences, both had free fallen into a new reality. The only difference was that Jehz had some of the most powerful people in the Given world to catch him, brush him off, and help him rise again. Allz had been mostly left to pick himself up off the ground, as Musa are expected to do. He deserved to pay a heavy price for his mistakes, but not to be crushed by a burden so many others had a hand in placing on his young shoulders. When the day came, Jehz let Allz live, astonishing nearly all in the courtroom, all except the Rejiz and his band who looked at each other knowingly, all thinking the same thing. Not only is Jehz likely to be what we thought beyond hope he could be, but our ability to control him seems well within our reach.