Team Tyrian charged straight ahead. Nic had only a moment to glance at his squadmates, two on his left and two on his right. The five purple proxybots—no, the five humans clad in purple vac-armor—threatened to tackle Team Scarlet off the Hill. But they were all moving individually; this would be Scarlet’s edge.

“Winner!” Nic cried out. He locked arms with Jarek on his right and Maqsud on his left, who in turn each locked arms with one of their female squadmates. Together, the five red-armored players formed a sturdy barricade to block Tyrian’s advance.

It worked even better than he’d hoped.

Severiano crashed headfirst into Nic, but Nic didn’t budge. The other Tyrian players faced similar fates. They tried again, putting their shoulders into tough tackling maneuvers, putting their heads down and charging to try to break the line. They all failed. Meanwhile, with Nic leading by example, Team Scarlet marched confidently forward across the circular platform raised off the ground, knocking each member of Team Tyrian off one by one.

Nic took particular satisfaction in personally placing his boot against Severiano’s visor and shoving him down with one kick. Nic felt like a kid again. He wished his mother could see him now.

Maybe she will, Nic thought. I bet this victory will be played on every human planet in the galaxy. He remembered the reason they fought even harder, the reason there were 10 million credits up for grabs instead of the usual 100,000: alien life. Past or present, Nereus held clues to the existence of extraterrestrial organisms, a one-of-a-kind discovery that would be remembered for the rest of human history.

Every student will know my name. Everyone who looks back on this day will know that I was here. That I fought. That I won!

But King of the Hill had only just begun. Just like the version they’d played so many times in PE back at Paradigm Prep, there was no point threshold for victory. The winning squad was the one with the most accumulated time on the Hill—the sum of all five players’ times—once the time limit was up. The Sudden Death version of this Wargame was played for only ten minutes.

Nic felt good about Team Scarlet’s chances of winning already. Both squads accumulated seconds early on, since both started on the platform, but removing all five members of Team Tyrian helped Scarlet build up a breathable lead.

SCARLET: 4:40 | TYRIAN: 2:03 KING OF THE HILL (0:56 / 10:00)

“Solid start, Team Scarlet,” said Nic, brimming with pride. “Keep up the good work and Nereus will be ours in less than 10 minutes!”

The red-player wall kicked Abigail’s fingers off the platform’s ledge, preventing her from climbing back up. Nic noted that her simply touching the Hill didn’t move Tyrian’s score even one second; there must have been some other qualification to be considered “occupying” the Hill, maybe a certain portion of a player’s weight, or maybe their boots had to be touching the Hill. He wasn’t sure.

“We got this... assumin’ they don’t find some way to tie us again,” Jarek chuckled.

“How would that even be possible?” Perri asked. “I get if two racers cross a finish line at roughly the same time, but with this many players all racking up individual contributions to the squad score... I feel like it’d be almost impossible for them to tie with us. You know? There are just too many variables.”

Nic and Jarek both kicked hard at another two Tyrian players trying to climb back onto the platform. Although their purple enemies locked arms this time, apparently trying to copy a winning strategy, Team Scarlet had the advantage of the high ground. Nic grinned at the sight of the two purple players landing back-first onto the muddy ground.

“Ah,” said Maqsud, “but there’s always the possibility we might tie anyway, isn’t there? Who could have foreseen a tie in the last Wargame?”

“No,” Nic said with finality. “We don’t tie. We don’t share. We win. And to the victors go the spoils.”

“The quote is actually ‘To the victor belong the spoils.’ A politician in the 1800s, William L. Marcy, from what was then the United States of America, Earth...”

Nic’s attention momentarily diverted to another shooting star. Feeling transitory comfort with his squad’s sizeable and authoritative lead, he let his eyes wander, watched the shooting star’s path through the Nereus night sky. No tail on this one either, he noticed. The light stopped moving suddenly. Scarlet 1 dismissed the apparent standstill as a trick of perspective and returned his focus to the game at hand.

“At a certain point,” said Nic, diving back into strategy mode, “Team Tyrian won’t be able to catch up to us, even if we leave the Hill and they stay on it for the rest of the time limit. If we...” He grunted as he spoke, helping Max beat back a trio of Tyrians. “...if we build a lead of over 25 minutes, and there’s less than five minutes left on the clock, it’s over!”

“Where we at now?” asked Jarek.

SCARLET: 12:15 | TYRIAN: 2:03 KING OF THE HILL (2:27 / 10:00)

“Well on our way,” Nic replied. “Don’t let them back up here, guys. We’re practically halfway there!”

“Hey,” said a voice. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it right away. Then he saw Severiano waving from the ground below the Hill platform. “We need to tell RTIFIS to stop the Wargame. Something’s up.”

Nic snorted. “Yeah. Us. On the scoreboard. Sorry, Severiano, but I’m not going to let you take this away from me.” He felt a twinge of guilt at throwing the man’s own words back in his face; it passed. I refuse to be baited or tricked during Sudden Death, of all times, he thought bitterly. I may have made some stupid mistakes early on, but I’m not that stupid!

Suddenly, Nic heard metal footsteps thudding the astrosteel behind him. He glanced over his shoulder—a Tyrian player was approaching from behind. Abigail. His right knee went weak under her sudden kick to the bend of his leg. She kept on kicking.

“That’s what I thought!” Nic barked. “Hold the line, guys!”

“Abigail!” Severiano shouted. She ignored him—either that, or it was all part of the ruse and he was doubling down.

Nic and his squadmates held the line, kicking backward at Abigail as best they could. She repeatedly kicked and tackled them from behind, trying to break their chain, searching for a weak link—and she found one. She broke the bond between Shanti and Maqsud. Shanti went tumbling off the platform and Max had broken loose from the line as well, stumbling forward.

“[I’m sorry, friends,]” said Shanti’s thought-to-speech program.

“That’s it,” Nic growled through gritted teeth. Without breaking stride once, he disconnected from the Scarlet barricade, put his head down, and tackled Abigail so hard that she went flying off the Hill—landing with a clattering, muddy thud some distance away. He knew that his feat of strength was only possible with the power of his vac-armor.

What followed was a chaotic scuffle. Two more Tyrian players rejoined the Hill and a brief, haphazard wrestling match of sorts ensued. Any semblance of a strategy went out the window. The game was no longer mental; it became a physical competition, a test of strength and speed. Even more than that, it was a battle of the spirit. Of heart. Of will.

Nic had nothing if not that.

“Ugh,” Nic grunted as he hit the rock-strewn ground hard. Max landed next to him. “It’s okay. Let’s get back up there! This is almost over!”

“Nic, Severiano is right,” Maqsud replied. “Something’s wrong.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Come on, man, let’s hop back up—”

“Nic.” There was dead serious urgency in Scarlet 4’s voice now. “Something is seriously amiss here. Have you taken a look at the sky since we started?”

“Yeah. Shooting stars. Saw ‘em. Don’t care.” Nic grabbed the edge of the Hill and swung his right leg up to try to complete his climb. Jeffrey was there to kick him back down—until Jarek came up behind him and put him in a half nelson hold, dragging him away from the edge to give Nic and Max an in.

“I think Team Obsidian is still out there, Nic. Possibly in orbit. Or perhaps they’ve hijacked a drone. Whatever it is, I’ve got a bad feeling—”

“Dude, we can talk about this after. Time is running out!”

“NIC!” Max yelled. “I’m worried they’re going to try to sabotage this game!” Nic stared at him through their visors for a few seconds. “Those aren’t shooting stars, Nic. I’ve seen three of them since we started. They’re artificial lights, electric lights. Someone could be killed! Or at the very least seriously hurt. Do you want that on your conscience?”

“Max, if you ruin this for us, I am going to seriously hurt you.”

“Nic... You’re better than this. Won’t you think of something more important than winning for once?”

The Squad Leader glared at his subordinate, gritting his teeth in the brightly lit confines of his vac-armor helmet. The clock kept ticking; it wasn’t worth settling now. “If you’re not going to help me make history here,” he hissed, climbing back onto the Hill, “then stay the hell out of my way.”

Nic saw red. His focus narrowed to razor sharpness. An indomitable will rose up inside him in that moment, the kind that could only be cultivated over a lifetime. Every last hour spent in PE, every class and sim at PPI, every practice session in the Simnasium, and every Wargame match they’d ever fought... it all led to this. The star that Nereus orbited could have gone supernova for all Nic cared in that moment. Nothing was going to stop him.

He barely registered his squadmates returning to the Hill. Their help benefited him, but he didn’t feel that he needed it anymore. This was the first time he was inside a proxybot, his flesh and blood, and yet he moved more like a machine than ever. He charged forward with both his arms out at his sides and tackled two Tyrian players at once—sent them tumbling violently off the Hill.

Only one voice was able to take the blinders off for a split second. Only one sentence broke his steel-solid focus.