Did she not want to compete?

The question royally bothered Lidiya now that Ronin and her brother had dragged her into the tournament. Worst still, it was a question she couldn’t avoid – one that she had to face sooner rather than later. The problem was that the last match Team Wildcards had battled in had left her Saix licking new wounds, and afterwards Lidiya had asked herself if she had what it took to be a Zoid Warrior. Granted, it was almost customary to question yourself after a defeat, but it seemed to be that Lidiya was doing it even when Team Wildcards managed to win. That’s why she’d been relieved when Ronin had said he could win the tournament on his own, while simultaneously feeling guilty about leaving it all to him.

Now her situation had been flipped on its head because the tournament was a lot bigger than Ronin had bargained for and he needed her help. On the one hand, she blamed it on his overconfidence. On the other, she blamed it on the tournament organizers and whoever was fronting up so much prize money. But at the end of the day, she was stuck in a situation that had only one way out – competing alongside Ronin on the battlefield. The problem was that she didn’t believe she was ready. Even if Deacon and Aaron could get her Zoid combat effective in two days, making herself combat worthy was another matter. And though it stung, that was her answer right there. Lidiya did not want to compete because she believed she wasn’t up to it, and that made her fear her future and that of her team’s.

***

The round trip from the pit building to the junkyard and back again cost about ninety minutes of daylight. Piloting her Saix at a fast walk was the limit Lidiya set for her Zoid, and fortunately it was enough because she and Deacon returned to the pit building with a couple of hours to spare before tournament officials shut the gate and no more Zoids were allowed in. She went through the check-in process with a grumpy official atop a cherry-picker platform. Then she had her Zoid weighed and scanned, before her Saix was allowed to set foot onto the pitlane. With that out of the way, Lidiya walked up the lane until she arrived at the hangar housing Bay-42.

Earlier in the day, the metal doors across the hangars had been rolled down and shut. She had to contact Ronin who then had to work out how to get Bay-42’s door open so that she could back her Saix into the empty space beside the Shadow Fox. That proved a little more difficult than she’d bargained for, but after two or three anxious minutes, Lidiya was able to bring her Lightning Saix to a stop alongside Ronin’s Zoid. She switched the cockpit systems to sleep mode, then unbuckled her safety harness. Despite the cockpit going dark and the canopy losing its transparency, the pilot-to-Zoid interface was still running, allowing her to command her Saix to crouch so that she could drop to the hangar floor from a safe height. However, it turned out she didn’t need to. When she opened the canopy, Lidiya saw her brother standing on a cherry-picker platform coming up alongside the Saix’s head.

Aaron worked the joystick controls to bring the platform within inches of the Zoid’s right cheek, then pushed down the safety that would lock the machine in place. That way, if he nudged the controls by accident, the platform wouldn’t move. Lidiya climbed out of the Saix’s cockpit and jumped the short distance to the cherry-picker.

“Any problems?” Aaron asked her.

“Nope,” she replied straight away and winced when she feared she’d answered too quickly. Indeed, Aaron was watching her carefully. “What?” she snapped at him.

“Did something happen between you and Ronin?”

She paled, feeling the blood drain from her face. “What? No. Of course not—why? Did he say something to you?”

Aaron narrowed his eyes at her marginally. “So…nothing really happened?”

Lidiya sucked in air quickly into her lungs. “Aaron, nothing happened. So why are you asking me?”

He relaxed, looking relieved. “Okay….” He unlocked the cherry-picker’s controls, then began descending the platform away from the Lightning Saix. “Where’s Deacon?”

Lidiya scowled for a second, long enough for her brother to notice it, then smoothed away her expression. “I don’t know. We went our separate ways at the pitlane entrance. I guess he’s sparking the jeep.” She looked toward the hangar’s open entrance. “Is it all right to leave that open?”

“No, we’ll shut it shortly.”

The platform descended to the cherry-picker beneath it, hitting bottom a second later.

“Right,” Aaron began, “I need you to hop off.”

Lidiya inhaled slowly, deeply, then said, “Aaron…there’s something I need to say.”

“I know. You don’t want to fight in the tournament. That’s pretty much written all over your face.”

She snorted. “Well, excuse me for being so obvious.”

“You’re fighting in the tournament. We need you.”

She huffed at her brother’s words. “Aaron, I can’t fight. I’m not good enough.”

“The only reason we won any of our matches was because of you.”

She shook her head sharply. “No, that’s not true—”

“Lidiya, you’re a much better pilot than I am.”

“That is definitely not true. You just need a better Zoid.”

Aaron regarded in her thoughtful silence for a couple of seconds. “If I were to agree with you—and I don’t—you’ve still got the better Zoid, so you’re fighting in the tournament.”

Taking a step back, she groaned in frustration. “I go out there, we’ll lose.”

“You’re not going out there alone. You’re going out there to support Ronin. Don’t forget that.”

She looked up at the Shadow Fox standing almost motionless to the left of the Lightning Saix. “I’ve never fought beside him. I don’t know how to be his partner on the battlefield.”

Her brother sighed long and loudly, forcing her to face him. And the exhausted expression he wore made her feel guilty.

“Lidiya,” he wearily began, “just go talk to him. He’s got something important to show you.”

“Aaron, didn’t you hear—?”

“I heard you. Loud and clear. So now I want you to listen to me. Even if you don’t believe you can do it, at least believe in me who believes in you.”

“…huh…?”

“I’ve got faith in you, sis. And I know you won’t let us down. You just need…you need to rebuild your confidence.”

Easier said than done.

Aaron gently shook his head. “Dad…he wouldn’t want to see you this way.”

Her throat grew tight in a heartbeat. She turned away, unable to look her brother in the eyes or in his direction as her emotions roiled inside her. She needed to get away, off the platform, but Aaron caught her by an arm before she could escape. He spun her round and embraced her tightly, saying nothing, just holding her for a long while, probably feeling her heart racing in her chest as she lost the battle within.

I will not cry.

And she didn’t. She held back her tears. She took measured breaths. She struggled but succeeded in putting a lid on the loss that was tormenting her. She shut it away. It was the best she could do for now.

“Better?” Aaron asked.

Her throat remained too tight for her to talk, so she only nodded back.

Aaron carefully released her and softly said, “Go talk to Ronin. He’s up in the loft. There’s a lift at the back of the hangar that you can use to get up there.”

She shrugged a shoulder and replied with a raspy, “Okay….”

Lidiya climbed down a ladder from the platform to the hangar floor and glanced up to see Aaron watching her with a faint smile that she figured was masking his worry for her. She lightly waved back then walked between her Zoid’s feet toward the rear of the bay, forcing herself not to look behind her.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The elevator platform at the back of the hangar was easy enough to operate. It was encircled by a safety fence and wouldn’t start unless the door was properly shut. The lift took her up to the metal balcony outside the loft with its row of big windows facing the hangar bay. Lidiya exited the elevator onto the balcony, then entered the loft through an unlocked door. She realized once she was inside that maybe she should have knocked.

Get it together.

Scott Ronin was sitting on a plastic chair by a small, round table, and staring at something displayed on his pocket tablet. He had the device unfolded in his hands to make it bigger, and he looked up at her as she paused inside the doorway. Closing the door behind her, Lidiya walked up to the table and pulled out a chair across from him.

“Hey,” she mustered.

“Hello.” Ronin frowned ever so slightly as if noticing something about her that caught his attention.

“What?” she blurted out.

“Did you…have any trouble?”

She almost frowned as well, but instead she sat back and tried relaxing in the uncomfortable chair. “No. It just took a while to get here.” She swallowed quickly. “Why?”

Whatever he was thinking, Ronin suddenly made his expression flat and unreadable. “Aaron said you might be having doubts about competing.”

Lidiya felt as though the strings holding her up had suddenly been cut. She very nearly slumped in the chair, catching herself at the last moment by forcing herself to sit up and fold her arms across her chest. It also helped to sound testy in her response. “My brother doesn’t know me half as well as he thinks he does.”

“Maybe, but it’s also plain to see that you don’t want to fight in the tournament.”

She swore inside her head and closed her eyes for a fleeting moment. “I don’t know what good I’ll do out there. You and I have never partnered before on the battlefield. We don’t know how the other fights. And two days of work on my Saix isn’t going to fix all her problems.” She slowly shrugged her shoulders. “I can’t see myself making things easier for you.”

Ronin accepted that with a shallow nod. “In that case, let me show you something.”

He pushed his unfolded tablet across the table to her. Lidiya picked it up and contemplated the image on the screen. It reminded her of a grey and black computer tower, squarish with beveled edges and lights and buttons on a panel on one side, but she had no idea what purpose it served.

“What’s this?” she asked Ronin.

“That’s the answer to your problem.” She gave him an ‘oh really’ kind of look to which Ronin explained, “It’s a combat simulator. A battle AI developed by the Backdraft group’s scientists and packed by their engineers into that box which is about”—he held his hands apart—“a foot tall and half as wide.”

She peered at the image again. “A combat AI?”

“It’s fitted to my Shadow Fox. To the second prototype unit. The first unit didn’t have it. That machine was stolen before the battle AI could be installed into it. I’m guessing by now other Backdraft Zoids have been upgraded with a battle AI like this one…or an upgraded version of it.”

She tapped the image on the tablet. “And this is going to solve my problem? How?”

“You said it yourself. You don’t know what good you’ll be out there. That battle AI can help you find out. And it can help us gain combat experience without having to take our Zoids out of the hangar.” Ronin spread his hands in conversation. “It’ll take your brother, Deacon, and whatever other help we can hire the rest of today and tomorrow to get the Lightning Saix repaired. That will leave us with only Sunday’s free practice hours to sort out issues with your Zoid before the tournament starts on Monday.” He gestured at the tablet in her hands. “With that battle AI, we can simulate combat between our Zoids and between teams competing in the tournament all from the comfort of our cockpits.”

Lidiya spoke slowly, warily. “You’re saying we can practice while Aaron and Deacon are fixing my Saix?”

“Exactly. While they’re working, we can run combat sims. I’ll need to run data cables between my Fox and your Saix—cockpit to cockpit—and I may need help getting our Zoids to talk to each other, however, I’m sure we can manage. The advantage of this system is that it can also supply the pilot with combat recommendations in real time during a battle.”

Lidiya gave Ronin a look of contempt. “That’s cheating.”

“That’s why the Backdraft use it. That’s why they developed it in the first place.”

“Ronin, we’re not Backdraft.”

He gave her a deep nod. “That’s why we’re not going to use it in battle. We’re only going to train with it during the free practice hours over the weekend.” He paused, seemed to consider something, then said, “Nobody is supposed to know about that box. If the tournament officials find out—”

“—we’ll be disqualified,” she finished for him.

Ronin nodded again, tightly this time. “Or worse. We could get suspended from legitimate Zoid matches.”

Lidiya glanced through the loft’s big windows into the hangar. “Does my brother know?”

“I told him about it. He’s not happy about using it but he can see its value, especially if it helps you regain your confidence. Nonetheless, he said the final decision should be yours. We’ll use it for training only if you’re okay with it…and if you can keep it a secret.”

She gave the image of the boxy computer more consideration. She wasn’t going to lie to herself or Ronin if he happened to ask. The notion of using something like a Backdraft AI didn’t sit well with her, especially if Team Wildcards ran the risk of being disqualified. And yet by the same token, if it was used as a training tool – as Ronin promised – then it may help her earn a much needed confidence boost, but only if she put the work into it. Of that much, she was under no allusions.

Quietly, Lidiya slid the tablet across the table back to Ronin. “I can keep a secret.”

Ronin’s quietly studied her face for a short while, perhaps considering if he should believe her before he broke into a faint smile. “All right, then.” He paused. “Do you have any questions?”

She wet her lips and swallowed quickly. “Have you used it before?”

“I have. For training. And a few times in combat during my first month as a legitimate warrior in the League.” He sat back, stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, then looked across at Lidiya again. “It helped me find my feet when I was new to Zoid battles. But then Bron took me under his wing and taught me a lot of what I know today. I’m still learning. Every single match that I’ve fought has been a learning experience.”

“Have you used it recently?”

“No.” He shook his head. “I haven’t used it in combat since I teamed up with Bron some seven months ago. The only times I use it now is to help me review my battles and look for ways to improve.”

“Then you were planning to use it during the tournament.”

Ronin grew still and lost his smile. “Yes. I’m planning to use it to develop and test strategies before each match.”

Lidiya drove her point home. “You asked the AI if you could win the tournament on your own and it said No.”

His eyes widened and he shook his head while chuckling. “I didn’t need to ask the AI that question. It was obvious to me after Bron and I toured the pitlane and researched the teams we were up against. As good as I am, as good as the Fox is, if we face opponents like that monstrous Dark Horn or a trio of Saber Tigers in the hands of competent pilots, then I’ll need a year’s worth of luck to win.”

“Or you could cheat by using the AI in combat.”

He exhaled curtly and cocked his head at Lidiya, eyeing her with a flat stare. “If I was going at it solo, I might use the AI to back me up and help me out of a tough spot. But I’m not solo anymore. I’m with Team Wildcards. And I’d rather win with Team Wildcards at my side with an emphasis on winning.” He then leaned toward her as he sat on his chair. “If you don’t want to take part in the tournament, I can’t force you to. I suggested using the battle AI for training to help you get past whatever hurdle you’re facing, but if you’re against it all, then I’ll either win or lose on my own out there.”

He stood up and looked down at her.

“Make your choice. Here and now. If you’re not going to fight in the tournament with me, I’ll go update the team’s lineup with the officials. And if you don’t want me on the team because of the Backdraft AI or my connection to them, just say so. Don’t mince words or pussyfoot around the issue. Just tell it to me straight.”

Lidiya hardened her stare. “I never said that.”

“But you have a problem with me being former Backdraft.”

“No, I have a problem with you using that thing to cheat.”

“I wasn’t planning on cheating with it. I was planning to use it to work out strategies against our opponents. You think they’re not going to do the same? They won’t have that battle AI, but I’ll bet most of the better teams are going to be using some form of software to plan out their strategies.” Ronin then stiffened before leaning back an inch or more. “Hold on…you’ve never used strategy software before.”

She snorted and sneered. “Unlike other teams, we’ve never needed to.”

“You had no strategist? Or you had a strategist in your team?” Ronin then guardedly asked, “Was it your father?”

Her sneer turned into a scowl. “Why are you bringing up my father?”

“I’m just asking if he was your strategist.”

She stood up to face but not quite at eye level. Ronin had a couple of inches on her in height. But now she didn’t feel like she was being talked down to. “Yes, my father worked out our strategies. And no, he didn’t use an AI to help him and we were doing just fine in our battles.”

“But now he’s gone, and you haven’t been doing as well. You’ve had to really push to eke out those wins and they’re harder to come by.”

Lidiya huffed. “Who are you to criticize us? You’re the cheat using that AI to win.”

“I told you already. I only use it to develop plans to win and to analyze what I could have done better. I don’t use it during combat. And don’t tell me that other teams don’t do the same because they do.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “And that makes it all right?”

“Well, it doesn’t make it illegal to use strategy software, which can also come in the form of an AI unit.”

She cocked her head at Ronin. “You said that if the tournament officials found out they’d disqualify us.”

He pointed at a loft window. “That’s because it’s a Backdraft box.” After lowering his arm, Ronin said, “There’s one thing you’re forgetting. Having a strategy is only half the job. The other half is executing that strategy and not fumbling it. That’s where practice comes into play.”

Lidiya was ready to retort but then she realized, with what? She’d already used up her argument that it was cheating. Yet even if Ronin was right and other teams used such software or AIs to improve their chances of victory, it felt wrong and unfair to her, and she couldn’t bring herself to accept.

Ronin pointed again at a window and the hangar beyond it. “I’m going to use that battle AI to plan our matches and maximize whatever chance at victory we’ve got. That’s not cheating. That’s preparation. I’m not going to force you to take part in it. But I’m not going to avoid doing it just because you have a moral or ethical problem with it.”

He reached for the table and picked up his tablet, folded it shut, and shoved the device into a jacket pocket. Without a word, he walked to the loft door next to the windows, then stepped out onto the balcony facing the hangar. Lidiya watched him step onto the elevator platform and take it down to the hangar floor. Once he was out of sight, she sat down on the uncomfortable plastic chair and stared hard and gloomily at the floor.

She was bitter at Ronin.

Annoyed with herself.

But what she regretted most was that for a moment – for mere heartbeats during her argument with Ronin – Lidiya had resented her father for abandoning his family the way he did.