Team Scarlet lucked out bigtime. As dramatic as RTIFIS had made the sudden three-way Wargame seem, the Corvettes from Yellow Expansion Industries and Purple Colonies were still en route to Planet Nereus. It would be another nine standard hours before they arrived, just enough time for Team Scarlet to grab some desperately needed shuteye after their grueling day-long mission.

As exhausted as Nic’s body was, his mind, his spirit, even though he didn’t believe in such things—his inner self was restless. This tug of war between sleep and wakefulness caused him to toss and turn in Bedroom 1 of Team Scarlet’s Corvette. He was lucky to carve out a solid two-hour chunk of sleep in the middle of that.

The rest of that time was spent rolling back and forth in bed. Staring at the wall. Remembering. Preparing. When he drifted off for what he thought was another fruitful expanse of slumber, only to crack open his left eye and see that only six minutes had elapsed on his holographic wall clock, he decided that his time could be better spent elsewhere.

He took the shower that he’d been too stunned to take the night before, and in it, he allowed himself time to think about something other than work—namely, the fact that humans were not alone in the universe. In other circumstances, he might have chuckled at his mismatched priorities. A discovery of this magnitude would go down in history—and his squad, likely, along with it.

But at the forefront of his mind was the prospect of a Wargame match against not one but two other squads competing at the same time. He didn’t know how such a competition would even work. Just after Team Scarlet managed to claw their way to a win on Didumos, they were thrust into a long, arduous recovery mission on Nereus. That was the frying pan.

And here comes the fire, Nic thought.

“This can’t be legal, man,” said Jarek, cooking breakfast for the squad in the Corvette kitchen.

Maqsud nodded, tearing open a resealable packet and dumping it into a pitcher of filtered water. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“I mean, how is this legal? How can they do this?”

“You are preaching to the choir. It’s barbaric, rash, short-sighted—”

“Don’t we get, like, a company-sanctioned break between missions or somethin’?” Maqsud arched an eyebrow. When he didn’t continue agreeing with him, Jarek shot him a look and pointed. “Wait, were you talkin’ about somethin’ else?”

Scarlet 4 nodded. “I was talking about the enormous danger of fighting a remote-controlled battle of explosives and projectile weapons during what could be a first contact scenario with extraterrestrial life.”

“What, you think some little green men are gonna get caught in the crossfire and shoot us with their ray guns?” Perri chuckled. “You sound like one of the ancient philosophers you always quote from the 1900s or something.”

“Well, no, b-but the, um,” Max sputtered, clearly flustered, “what I mean to say is, of course there’s no evidence of any macro-biological presence on Nereus, but biomarkers mean either there are recent remnants or very tiny, microscopic life forms, probably in the oceans. What if this brutish warfare of ours disturbs that life, or worse, burns it away? We may fight in proxybots, but Wargame entails some very serious real-world firepower!”

“WorldGov approved it,” Nic cut in. “They must be okay with the risk. For all we know, the microbes live in those thermal vents at the bottom of the trenches where we recovered the black box. WorldGov wouldn’t approve it if there was a real danger we’d mess up the ecology here.”

“Perhaps I’m overthinking things,” Maqsud sighed, pouring everyone glasses of rehydrated orange juice, “but if I am, I chalk it up to my exhaustion. Jarek’s right, too. Really, squads are sent from one mission immediately to the next, but if the next planet is hundreds of light-years away, you’ve got some downtime between missions. Not so when you’ve already been hauling proverbial hindquarters across that very planet for the past day...”

“It’ll be okay,” Nic lied to his squad. In reality, he worried what sleep deprivation would do to their performance, and he hoped they were all better rested than he was. But laying bare one’s own fears and insecurities was unbecoming of a leader. “We all managed to get decent sleep at least, and after a hearty breakfast, we’ll be ready to take down any threat that comes our way.”

“I sure hope so,” said Perri, sitting down at the dining table with her plate of food. She sipped at her juice. “No offense to our lovely chefs...” Max and Jarek both gave her cheesy grins, framing each other’s faces with their hands in a goofy pose. “...but it’d be nice to eat some real food more than a few times a year, you know?” She poked at her jiggling mass of eggs that had been powder just minutes prior. “Winning Planet Nereus means we all get to retire, right? We get to retire later today. And if we lose, we might never have another chance at prize money like that, so... That’s going to be my biggest motivator out there.”

“I can’t believe Nic didn’t have us drilling Wargame in the Simnasium all night as a refresher for today’s match,” Max teased, plating his own food last. “Aren’t you worried we’ll be ill-prepared?”

Yes, Nic thought. “Nah,” he answered. “I was so beat after yesterday that I had to sleep the whole night away. I figured everyone else was tired, too. Plus, uh...” Plus I’m trying not to be such a hard-ass to the squad anymore to help with morale. “Plus, we’ve already practiced Wargame so much, on top of the other sims in our rotation. There’s only so much that a few more hours of practice would have done, at the cost of our sleep.”

Maqsud took a seat across from Nic at the table. “Well, Nicolas, I dare say you’ve come quite a long way from the whip-cracking totalitarian on Planet Gwher. With the way that things turned out on Didumos, I feel rather at ease about today’s match. I think Nic will lead us to the biggest victory of our lives today—and the last one that we’ll ever need. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Perri and Jarek both raised their glasses, and the latter added, “I don’t doubt him. Never have.”

Nic dreaded the day that he might break Jarek’s faith in him. He hoped that today was not that day. “Thanks, guys.”

Shanti joined them last, picking hungrily at her plate of rubbery protein squares. Everyone on Team Scarlet had learned not to cook eggs for her anymore, as they only went to waste. She looked up nervously and infrequently from her food, but when she did, Nic saw she attempted a smile each time.

“How’s your plant doing, Shanti?” Perri asked her with a friendly smile in return.

“[Good,]” Scarlet 5 answered through her thought-to-speech earpiece. “[It’s turning green again. I think it’s going to live now.]”

“Just think,” Perri said after she downed the rest of her juice, “if we win today’s Team Free-for-All, Shanti, you’ll get to live on a planet with a bunch of plants all around you. You won’t have to keep one in a pot in your bedroom anymore. You can if you want to, but you’ll be able to walk outside, too, without a suit on... There’ll be trees and flowers all around. Sunlight. Rain. A reward for all your hard work.”

Shanti smiled her widest smile of the day so far, revealing just a sliver of her slightly crooked teeth. “[That sounds nice.]”

“When you retire on a nice green planet, can we still visit you?” Perri, ever the confident, bubbly, gregarious girl, looked the slightest bit hopeful in that moment. Nic saw the uncertainty in her blue eyes, the kind she almost never showed.

“[Of course,]” Shanti replied. “[You’re my friends.]”

***

RTIFIS began. Nic and the rest of his squad were strapped back into their SimSuits in the Simnasium, ready for their next Wargame to begin. ‘Ready’ might be a strong word, Nic thought, but we’re here, and it’s happening. Nic exhaled when he heard that staggering number, and hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

A couple of seconds passed, so Nic opened his mouth to say something to Team Scarlet, but RTIFIS was already back.

Excellent, Nic thought. We’ve won Arena every single time we’ve played it in the field. Today should be no different. “Now that’s a stroke of luck worth celebrating,” Scarlet 1 said with a grin. “Team Scarlet, ready up! This could be our final Wargame match ever—in a good way this time!”

Once every member of Team Scarlet confirmed their readiness, RTIFIS said,

Nic’s eyes snapped open on the newly-constructed battlefield of Planet Nereus. Miraculously, it was still local daytime. There were irregular prisms of smooth black and slate-colored stone stabbing diagonally up from the ground at odd angles that provided small amounts of cover. As usual, there were also stark black astrosteel towers scattered across the environment, as well as walls and platforms made of astrosteel that offered additional hiding spots. The rest of the terrain was all grayish, bluish, or greenish waterworn pebbles, shiny from the ambient moisture, in a thin layer over the muddy dirt.

He didn’t have time to take in the scenery, though. On the other side of the starting field he saw five bright yellow proxybots, and across from them were five proxies colored a deep, royal purple. The new free-for-all format must have given all the squads pause. Maybe the other players were simply daydreaming about their potential winnings. Whatever the cause, it took a few seconds for the first shot of the match to be fired.

When it was, all hell broke loose.

“Team Scarlet, target Xanthic!” Nic ordered. He trained his Submachine Gun on the foremost yellow proxy and squeezed the trigger. Man, does it feel good to be back in business!

At least it did until the first bullet pierced his avatar.

Nic remembered the cost of doing said business, namely that live Wargame pain settings were always calibrated to “Realistic.” There was no changing them, per the guidelines ratified in the Treaty of 2401, so he was made to feel each bullet ripping through his skin as if it were actually happening to him. It was just as excruciating as ever.

Today will be the last day I ever have to feel this, he thought. If we win.

“Taking heavy fire from the purple ones!” Jarek shouted.

“Likewise!” Maqsud yelled.

“Put it all on yellow!” Nic replied, frantically slapping a new magazine into his SMG. “Teamwork will net us the most kills!”

All four of his squadmates obeyed, focusing their fire on Team Xanthic, while the other two squads appeared to be dividing to conquer. The kills were chaotic, all over the place—all Nic could do was wait to see where the points landed. He chucked a Grenade with guidance from RTIFIS and then held down his trigger until he couldn’t anymore.

NIC >FRAG> ROLAN JAREK >SMG> CIGDEM PERRI >SMG> MYUNG-HEE ABIGAIL >SMG> NIC

Suddenly, Nic saw only darkness all around him, and he had no idea how his surviving squadmates were faring. Once he died, he lost access to the scoreboard until he respawned 10 seconds later.

“Back in,” he announced in the Scarlet team chat.

It was a virtual bloodbath that left not a single survivor.

SCARLET: 4 | TYRIAN: 6 | XANTHIC: 5

Dead last already, Nic lamented. We’ve got our work cut out for us today. But that shouldn’t surprise me anymore.