“Just face it, already…”
Megh pulled on his helmet and uniform, the winged symbol emblazoned on each signifying that they were the property of the Republic of Segate. Buckling on his sidearm, he headed out of his room, tapping his hand against the biometric security pad to close and lock the door as he left.
Another morning, another day of training ahead of him. He brushed a bit of stray hair back under his helmet as he followed the map on his small wristpad, a grey strand falling from his head and drifting to the floor. Taking a left took him out of the living quarters and into a larger portion of the building. A couple of taps on his wristpad told him that the first thing on his agenda was advanced marksmanship training.
Megh sighed. He could already feel the tedium.
In Segate, the Enhanced Soldier Corps was trained using the best virtual reality training equipment that the Republic had at its disposal. For Megh, however, even the best wasn’t enough. He passed by a couple of newborn recruits, fresh out of the cloning vats and staring wide-eyed at the marksmanship simulator leaderboards. As they noticed him, they turned around and saluted sharply, their adolescent bodies snapping to attention. Megh ignored them and walked into the simulation chamber.
“Give me your best… again.”
A lightly sarcastic female voice boomed out from the speakers hidden in the walls and ceiling.
“You sure, Megh?” He sighed. It looked like Bet was on duty today.
“Yeah, I’m sure. Hardest difficulty, et cetera. Come on, I don’t have time to waste.”
“Silly, I was teasing you.” He could almost see her mock pout. “All right, booting up.” The chamber came to life, humming with a resonating thrum as it turned on, a smoking, blasted battleground materializing around him as virtual gear appeared on his body. As the changes completed, he ducked for cover immediately. The very first time he had done this, he had made the mistake of staying out in the open. He had learned quickly to hide.
Because on this map… every opponent was a Courser. And not just any Courser, an Aben one, tried and trained in their academy. For the past few decades of war, Segate had dedicated many of its resources to creating soldiers who would be able to combat these apparent demi-gods of the battlefield. When direct countermeasures failed, they created departments to handle each part of their war machine separately. The Bioenginneering Division, for example, was the one that had synthetically created Megh and the others in the Corps.
A Courser found him quickly, one always did. The brick wall he had been crouching behind suddenly crumbled as the virtual opponent’s aura slammed into it, breaking it apart and causing it to crumble and collapse. Quickly, Megh stood up. If the Courser had been real, he would have barely been able to detect Megh’s movment, his body moving at inhuman speeds as he stood up, raised his gun, and fired.
A short beam of blue light shot from the barrel, making a smoldering hold in the Courser’s chest. The virtual adversary fell to the ground. One down, two to go. He thought. Bending down, he confirmed the kill before turning to climb the building a few meters behind him. Light was one of the few things a Courser couldn’t deflect with his aura. Some top scientist in R&D had concluded this. Light had to be able to get through the aura at all times; otherwise, how would the Coursers be able to see? So, the Republic had weaponized light itself.
In a matter of seconds, he had scaled the building and set up on the roof. Slinging a duffel bag off of his back, he removed a sniper rifle and a two-pronged stand from it. He fitted the stand to the rifle, and peered through the scope. He could pick one of his two targets out immediately, hovering in the air near a wrecked playground. Tapping a button on the side of the scope, he zoomed in, focusing his sights on the second Courser’s head.
His face emotionless, he pulled the trigger.
With another blue flash of light, his target found that it had a hole in its head. Only one more to go, but his task would only get harder from here. Despite having dispatched the first two with so much ease, the last one was… special.
One in twenty or so Coursers were special in this way. They had unique abilities, surpassing even normal aura-users. The infamous General Wheatley, for example, had been known to be able to incinerate whole battalions with a mere snap of his fingers. One of Aben’s emperors had drowned an entire town in poison gas.
Each time he tried this simulation, a different evolution was chosen for his final opponent. He peered through his scope with bated breath, waiting for something to show up on his thermal sensor or heartbeat detector. Any time now… where are you?
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The only warning he got was a rumble beneath him. Moving as quickly as he could, he stood and jumped off the side of the building as the final Courser shot up from underneath him, blowing an enormous hole in the side of the building.
The maximum extension range of a Courser’s aura is about ten meters. If I stay beyond that, I should be safe from crushing blows. That’s not what I’m worried about, though…
The virtual courser clenched his fist, and Megh felt that the air was somehow tightening around him. Here it comes…
The Courser thrust out his clenched hand and a spike of metal about six inches long materialized from nowhere, accelerating towards him.
I can see it! He calmly stood up, and drew his pistol.
Easy. I’m faster than that.
After shooting the spike down, Megh dashed to the right, firing off another shot as the enemy roared in anger, flying up out of the beam’s path. He clenched both his fists now, and a cloud of similar flechettes appeared, raining down towards Megh.
He closed his eyes, then opened them again. To any normal person, this motion was so fast that it would be unregisterable. It would appear as if Megh’s eyes suddenly turned from their normal green to a brilliant gold.
I can see these too…
Not just that, but to him, the spikes seemed to produce ethereal shadows, indicating where they would be a few seconds in the future. Shifting one foot forward, Megh holstered his pistol and drew a couple of odd-looking devices from his belt. They were almost cylindrical in shape, and made to fit his hands. He squeezed them slightly, and they hummed to life as knife-like blades of solid light appeared from each one.
Naturally, he had done all this within the time that it took for the flechettes to move halfway toward him. Knowing where the projectiles would be was a useful ability to have, he thought, as he raised the blades and began to sweep them in arcs, deflecting the incoming spikes away from him. Just as he was about to finish knocking away the last ones, Megh noticed another quantum shadow over his vision.
The Courser? As he swept aside a final spike, his final adversary descended rapidly from the skies, placing Megh within his melee range. He’d been careless… this had happened to him only once before, but hadn’t dealt with it very well the first time. The only thing to do was to somehow take out the Courser before its aura could crush him. Gritting his teeth slightly, he moved his arms, pointing the blades at the courser’s chest just as he began to feel a crushing sensation around him.
The blades detached from the hilts, traveling towards the Courser’s chest. Just as he felt like his bones were about to break, the knives of light embedded themselves in their target’s chest, piercing his heart and lungs and killing them instantly. As he dropped to the ground, catching his breath, the simulation dissolved around him.
Bet spoke up again. “I never get tired of watching you beat them. That’s the thirty-eighth time in a row you’ve cleared this level of the simulation, you know. You ought to be proud of yourself.”
Pride wasn’t what he felt. His only thoughts were: mission complete.
A few hours later, back in his quarters, his wristpad beeped. It was a deployment notice. So, it seemed that those bumbling senators had finally noticed him. Well, the front lines should ease his boredom somewhat. He’d actually get to kill real Coursers now. He remembered back to his initial evaluation, and the examiner’s look of wonder.
“Just face it, Megh… you’re Segate’s secret weapon.”
***
The Masked Man had sent forth his chief steward, who brought four others with him. For two years, they had sought to gain access to this tomb by legitimate means, but with no success. At last, however, they had acquired the means to break in.
The men stood around an enormous stone coffin in the center of the room. On it was inscribed the words:
HERE LIES THE 1ST EMPEROR OF ABEN
A WISE AND JUST RULER
MAY HE REST IN PEACE
What the world did not know, however, was that the First Emperor hadn’t died. In reality, he had merely put himself in a coma, waiting for the day when his Masked friend would revive him. And now, with the presence of five others, he would return. A powerful force blew off the lid of the coffin, raining down dust on all those present.
“Welcome back… my Lord Emperor.”