A Soldier for All Seasons

Nate stared up at the cliff. A steep cragged rock, pockmarked by scars and crevices. Thankfully, it was just a rope run, the white rope dangling in the slight breeze. It was a big cliff, but he'd done his fair share of rope climbing.

"Any idea what's up there?" He asked Bastian.

Bastian shook his head. "Course changes every time. Just be prepared for anything and I mean

anything

, friend."

"Alright." Nate jogged on the spot, rolling his shoulders — they always ached after being in a dropship. Rivero had told him he was going first. It seemed a little unfair, seeing as he was the only one that had never run a Judge course before, but whatever.

This was not a skirmish where he'd have to bite his lip as he watched his team disintegrate. This was just

him.

And Isabelle.

*Go Nate!*

She cheered in his head, a brief visual image of her in a cheerleading outfit, pom-poms and all.

He couldn't help but grin.

"Three, two, one!" Rivero blew on her whistle, a megaphone in one hand. She stood on a drone, the machine spitting and hissing as it held her weight. She swayed, arms wide, and the drone swayed with her. A hoverdrone — the cause of a thousand broken bones, the unfailing desire of teenagers across the galaxy and the bane of their mothers.

Nate sprinted forward, eyes on the prize, feet in the dirt. He ignored Rivero as she skated ahead and rose with the cliff. Both hands around the knotted rope, tight, letting the rope around one leg and trapping it with his other foot so he could support his own weight while standing up. Not the fastest technique but that was how he'd been taught in boot camp.

He climbed as fast as he could. This, he knew how to do.

Past the crevices, the ground left him quickly. Rivero shouted from beside him, but he'd tuned her out. And then the shouting stopped.

The rope suddenly grew less taut. He dropped an inch. The rope was...frayed.

White fibres ahead of him, split like a broken omelette. Not frayed.

Cut.

Something tore.

He dropped with a cry. Hands scrabbled against the rock, but he couldn't find a hold. Palms bloody, sweaty, lacerated from the sharp rocks.

His fingers found a ledge. His shoulder tore.

"Fuuck!" He yowled, pure agony shooting through his nerves.

"Time's running." Rivero shouted through her megaphone.

"What the fuck?! Fuck the timer, someone cut that rope!" He shouted, trying to dig his feet into the cliff-face.

"Bullshit, trainee. Ropes break, shit happens. Get your shit together."

Fucking bullshit.

He fumed to himself.

*I think she's lying. But why

?

* Isabelle murmured.

He didn't have time to ask and he couldn't turn around to examine her face. All he could do was study the rock above him and not the dizzying depths below.

The rock was scarred, pockmarked. It was doable. He swung up and bit his lip bloody, his shoulder screaming. Up and up, feet dancing as he threw himself up. Rivero had gone quiet — maybe she realized he was contemplating leaping at her and taking her drone for himself.

Finally, his fingers found blessed grass. He pulled himself up carefully, laugh hysterical. Fuck this course and fuck the Judges.

Carmichael grinned at him from atop the cliff, knees bent, arms wide.

Fuck

.

Rivero shot him with something.

Carmichael charged him. Nate panicked, tried to duck. And was shoved straight off the cliff.

"Aiiii—" Something caught around the waist. Nate blinked.

An electro-rig harness. Nate swung in the air and stared at his waist, at the coils and followed them as they ran up to Rivero's drone. She laughed down at him.

"Fail!"

"I—what?"

*She shot you with a waist-rigger. Usually, law enforcement use them to catch runners—*

"

I, fuck, fuck, fuck." Nate muttered to himself as Rivero lowered him to the ground and released him.

"Back to the start. Everyone else, go in three-two-one! Clancy, thirty second penalty for making me save your ass. Maybe it'll help to see how your betters do it."

Xavier clipped his shoulder as he ran past.

"Tough luck, brother." Bastian muttered.

Nate just watched them go, scowling.

"That rope was cut." He said to nobody.

*You know what that means?*

"It means somebody's still trying to kill me." He said grimly.

Rivero thwacked him with a wooden stick. Nate sprinted ahead and tackled the cliff, trying to ignore the burning pain in his shoulder.

He jumped from hold to another, following the path of a trainee above him. Slow-going but his time was already screwed anyway.

*Any idea how to get past the big bad gorilla up top?* He asked Isabelle.

*Use his strength against him.*

*Easier said than done.*

Nate gasped as he finally pulled himself up. Carmichael grinned again, adjusting from one foot to the other. He skidded a foot back, affecting the charge of a bull.

Nate beckoned with his fingers, grinning with a false confidence.

Use his strength against him. But how?

Carmichael launched forward.

Nate threw himself on the dirt. Carmichael tripped on his body and fell forward, straight over the cliff. For a second, Nate thought he'd killed the instructor, until the sharp shock of a coil split through the air and Rivero's waist-rigger shot out. Carmichael lifted slowly back into view, but he was laughing uproariously.

Nate shook his head and kept moving. He had a course to run and competition to catch.

Ahead, barbed wire coiled in long lines over a messy run of wet mud, pressed and imprinted with hand prints. Trainees shuffled under the coils, wriggling through like worms. He took a deep breath and threw himself down.

Under one coil and then back up. Then, the wire split into horizontal ladders. Up and down, knees high, just like he'd been taught. Unbidden, a grin spread across his face.

He'd missed this.

No bullets, no bombs, just good old fashioned fun in a pile of mud.

A blur of something hit him hard, shoulder-checking him into a mud pool. "Eyes on the prize, Clancy!" Xavier laughed as he spat out brown, wiping the filth from his eyelashes.

"You fuck!" Nate roared, but he was already gone, nimbly darting under the next mud run. Had he waited just to do that?

"My grandmother's rotting corpse could run this course faster than you, Clancy." Rivero shouted.

After the mud run, Nate pelted forward. He

had

to try and rescue this disaster. He had to pass this training, had to become a Judge, had to grasp the power to keep Ana safe.

He couldn't lose her like he'd lost his sister, his family.

Thankfully, the mud turned to dirt turned to a grass hill, and up that hill sprung several trainees, straining for a key being dangled by a flying drone. Only, they weren't standing — they were floating. A zero-g bubble. Nate noticed the slight mauve shimmer as he entered, rising high.

*Propulsive force necessary.* Isabelle advised.

Gotcha.

Nate grabbed the nearest trainee, pulling himself onto the man's back, over his squeals and complaints. Feet on his shoulder, he kicked off hard, slinging himself through the weightless environment. An awry foot smacked him in the face but he was still able to grab the key easily. As soon as his fingers touched it, the zero-g bubble collapsed, sending them all flopping to the floor.

"Ow." The echo sounded but he was already moving, laughing.

"Suckers!" Nate called out. The path led to a cave-face, an incongruous red door jutting out of it. Nate tried the key.

It swung open.

Inside, darkness, a pure void. He blinked, waiting for the light to penetrate through, show him a way through.

Only, it didn't. The darkness remained.

"Fuck it." He muttered.

He stepped through and toppled instantly.

"Ah!" He fell into a mud slide, steep, a videogame level made real. He couldn't turn, couldn't shift. He just flailed, mud splattering into his coughing mouth as the cave whirled by. His fingers dug into the ground but he was going too fast, the mud caking his fingernails.

And then, light, pure and bright, ahead of him, highlighting a gap. He had to

jump.

But the gap was too—

He waited too long. He slid down with a cry and fell into certain doom. The doom was soft and bouncy.

The light shone from above, illuminating his fate. A...ball pit?

Multicolored balls, a rainbow of a fall. A ball pit for children, a mockery for those that failed to jump. Nate hung his head. This got worse and worse.

He grabbed a ball and squeezed, trying to work out his anger as he searched for a way out. The ball popped, gelatinous fluid seeping over his hand. He blinked.

Not plastic balls, but

jelly

.

He tried to move and found he couldn't. The balls stuck to him. He tried again and

sunk

an inch. The rock ledge on the side was higher. The balls were dragging him down, like enlarged and alien grains of colorful quicksand. Panic welled up in his throat, sudden and unexpected. He'd been through everything.

This shouldn't panick him.

But it did, his heart hammering against his ribs. He thrashed, trying to push the parasitic balls away. They clung, skin-tight, sinking him down. The light was getting further away, his head heavy, legs tired. He was drowning.

He was drowning.

*

Calm,

Nate

.

* And the panic was gone. Isabelle flooded his veins with something. He rolled his legs, floating on his back, slow and steady movements.

"You've got me." He murmured. "I surrender."

The balls loosened an inch.

And he was away, hand clasping onto the ledge and pulling himself up and away. The balls flinched and rolled away once he was free of the pit, afraid of leaving their kin. And then, with stuttering steps, he stumbled forth, seeing light and laughter. Loudness.

"Come on,

cuate!"

Bastian.

A few more steps and he fell across the finish line, sinking to his knees.

Rivero pulled him up by his collar, scanning him dispassionately. "That was like watching your new ship fly into your new house, trainee."

"I—yeah." Nate swallowed. "I fucked up." He raised his head to see the smirks and laughs of the other trainees. "But that rope was fucking cut, Rivero."

She slapped him hard and leaned in so he could see the corneas of her eyes, so close he could feel her breath. He saw in her eyes the urgency, the flare.

"No, it wasn't." She said simply.

He swallowed. "Okay."

And she was gone and he wondered if he'd seen anything in the first place.

"Where did Clancy fuck up, anyone?" Rivero asked. Nate took a deep breath. They stood in a wide open cave, a soft stream trickling the bluest of waters in a pool. The other trainees stood, leaning on each other or against the rock, catching their breath. Dirty but victorious.

A few others trailed in behind him. Nate heard Carmichael screaming at someone in the ball pit. At least he hadn't been

last.

"He didn't expect the unexpected." An unknown voice said.

"You're damn right." Rivero nodded approvingly. "Some of you seem to think we're in a Fed boot camp. Remember, we aren't training you to fight bugs. We aren't training you to follow orders. We're trying to teach you to do the fucking impossible. To be the key in every lock. To be the meanest nastiest beast in the room. The thug, the assassin, the spy, the siren, the chef and the fucking sommelier, all in one. What do I always say?"

They chorused as one. "To deal with anything you have to expect anything."

"That's right. Then why the fuck in a Judge course would I have a bog-standard mud run, Clancy?"

Suddenly, she was in his face, scowling.

"I-I don't know, ma'am." He barely stopped himself from wincing. His shoulder was killing him. It felt like his arm was hanging off. This was some real bullshit. Distantly, he felt rage, but whatever Isabelle had done to him had made him calm. Dangerously calm.

"It wasn't mud." Rivero smirked. "It was shit from a Delesan, those huge birds that escaped from the Zan-zan zoo. They've even made their way to this iced over hell-hole of a planet, believe it or not."

Nate spat out everything in his mouth. Some of the trainees vomited.

"Their shit attracts their jelly eggs since they sense their mother. So, if you hadn't rolled in that mud you wouldn't have almost died in that ball pit, see?"

He envisioned himself breaking her neck. He wouldn't do it. But

fuck

, he wanted to.

"Now, if you knew that, would you have gone through that mud run? Would you have rolled like a dumb piggy?"

Nate swallowed and with it, his visions of murder. "No, Ma'am."

"What would you have done?"

"Found another way, Ma'am."

"Ex-fucking-actly." Rivero snapped her fingers. "Find another way. That's what all this is about. That's the whole course, right there. That's what Judges do. When the whole galaxy is giving you two awful choices, you

find another way

. I never said you had to go through the mud run. Hell, I never even said you need to go up the cliff. I said make it to the finish line. There's no cheating, no rules, no guidelines. Just winning. Judges win, every single time, no matter how hard the game, no matter how bullshit the rules."

Rivero breathed out, nostrils flared. "Now dip yourself in the pool and get back on the birds, I don't want you dragging shit back into base."

###

Ana took a steady sip from her champagne flute. The grapes that made this champagne were picked by hand from the rolling hills of Els'alon, one of the Lunari's fairest planets. After they were pressed, the juice was fermented in barrels that were said to be gifted by the first Lunari to conquer space, eons ago. The champagne was blended with the finest white wines from across the Lunari realms, in order to signify the unification of her people. It was fermented again with sugar and yeast and then aged for over ten years. After that, the bottle was riddled and disgorged of the dead yeast, dosed and corked.

It was the finest champagne and cost more than most Lunari' annual salary for a single bottle. Eyebrows were raised at the bottles being given, even in this court, even among these nobles.

But it still tasted sour in her mouth, as she watched the dancing in the square between the long wooden tables, a false pretense of careless frolicking. Nobody was careless in Mother's court.

Except perhaps Cora, down below on one of the less intense tables. She was devouring a mighty meal, while still somehow entertaining a flock of young children, all fascinated by her cybernetic mods.

Ana focused.

"...and that is why we are so honored to present to you this token of our esteem and to showcase our highest relief at your safe return." The noble opened the velvet case gently, showcasing the glimmering gems of the necklace within.

"It is beautiful." Ana said truthfully. "Thank you."

"Thank you, I, I mean we are so glad you—"

"Thank you," Mother interrupted. "It is a princely gift and shall be remembered in the coming years."

The man flushed. Ana stopped herself from smirking. Mother's remark was an oblique one. All these gifts were to buy affection, and not necessarily Ana's.

The man bowed and withdrew. Ana sighed in relief, idle hands coming up to stroke her neck. It was bare. She grimaced. She couldn't wear Nate's gift in view of Mother. Nate's necklace was a true gift — cheap, because he knew her affection couldn't be bought. Edible, because he remembered how they bonded, starving in the jungle. Candy hearts, because he called her

sweetheart.

He was so adorable.

"A handsome man." Mother observed.

"Yes." Ana blinked. She'd barely noticed him.

"My people tell me you were traveling with that human who rescued you." Mother said blandly.

Ana knew better. "Yes, that's right." She tried and failed to contain her blush. Even though she knew it wasn't possible, even though she knew it was an impossible dream, she still fantasized about being truthful about her love, that Nate would be accepted by her Mother, by her people. "He saved my life. He is the best of men."

"But still just a man." Mother sipped her champagne, looking out over her court resolutely. "

You

are a Lunari princess and shall marry a Lunari prince."

"I was embar—no, humiliated by the last Lunari prince." Ana spoke softly, not meeting her Mother's eyes. It wouldn't do to argue in view of the court.

"Yes." Mother said carefully, smiling at a random noble and nodding to him. "He did not do his duty. Males can be cowardly at times and strong at others. It is best for a woman not to rely on their inconsistencies, but to find their strengths and use them for your own benefit."

Ana raised her glass to her lips, a smile playing on her lips. "Is that what you did with Father?" She said innocently.

She felt rather than saw Mother's sharp look. "In time, I loved your father, but I married him to unite our two tribes. I

stopped

a war.

We are of royal blood. We don't get to marry for love."

Ana took a deep breath and it felt like that breath was so keen that it pierced her lungs. "And so I must marry that fool to unite our tribes."

"The Twin Seas tribes are a...difficult people. Bringing us together would stop bloodshed. Is that not a great cause, to unite a disparate people?"

"They

are

united, Mother. Against

you."

"They are united against our Empire!" Mother cracked her glass in her hand, the crack like a splinter through the court's rosy veneer. It shattered it and left a deathly silence.

Mother laughed, rising to her feet, a napkin clutched in her claw-grip to stem the tide of blood. "Forgive me!" She announced. "Like the Empire, my strength is sometimes too mighty to believe!" The court laughed, too loud. She left the table.

Ana was left, sitting alone at a table fit for twelve, high on the dais, looking down at the court of diners and dancers. A small smile spread on her lips. She watched the pretty women in their gowns, the grace of their necks, their collarbones, their bosoms.

And wondered if Nate would like any of them.

###

Nate collapsed into his bed, exhausted. He clamped his eyes shut tight, hiding away from the stimulation. His muscles burned. The good Doctor had shot something into his shoulder that alleviated the pain at least, but it did nothing for the pure ache of muscles. For a single second, he wondered if he really was too old, before dismissing the thought.

Fuck that.

He'd killed more bugs than any twenty year old. None of the dead bug fuckers would call

him

too old to fight.

But this course was harder than he'd thought it be. None of the skills he'd picked up over the years seemed to be applicable. His leadership was disregarded as insubordination. His tenacity was seen as mindlessness. And his fellow trainees seemed to think him a joke.

"A poor performance today, Nathan Clancy."

Nate stopped himself from groaning as he felt the weight of his bed shift. He opened his eyes reluctantly.

Lunar Moon, the Mediator.

"Yeah, not great." Nate agreed. She sat perched on his bed uncomfortably, staring at him blankly. "I'll do better next time, don't worry."

"I am not worried." She told him. "I am certain you will improve, for you can scarcely perform worse than today."

Nate pursed his lips. "Yeah, thanks Lunar." He heard Lita snort from her bed.

"I did not mean to mock you, Nathan Clancy. I too have performed poorly in many of our tasks since arrival. But I am grateful for each tomorrow, to battle against the next day's challenges. Rising each day to battle is a victory in itself, my people say."

She readjusted her skirt. He stared at those long bronzed legs, endless, sculpted.

Lunar smiled. "Ah, you are admiring my battle-skirt."

"Yes." Nate agreed.

"A proud possession." She declared, brushing down the gold leather, inlaid with white lines, like it was drenched in orderly runes of chalk. "The battle-skirt is gifted on our eighteenth birthday, if we are victorious in our first skirmish." She threw her long hair back. "

I

won my people's

kar-ta-mava.

A great duel of one hundred warriors and in the end it was I who stood upon their fallen bodies. A great day."