Page 135 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

135

Braveheart’s Story

V alor

She’s a tough one, my female. I watch her struggle up that escarpment as rocks and dirt clods rain on her. I knew it was a fool’s errand from the start, but I couldn’t give up until she forced my hand.

How did we get so lucky as to have a female like that thrown into our cell? Braveheart asks.

He loves her. I’ve known it for days, just as I’ve known I love her, too. If things were different, we’d keep fighting for her, jockeying for supremacy, struggling to win her affection. I’m relieved we don’t have to do that. Though we share no DNA—or perhaps we do—he’s my brother.

I’m sorry about last night, I say as I pick my way up the hill, partly focused on my pretty Willow’s heart-shaped ass.

I understand. You did it to save my life.

Yeah, I’d shrug if he weren’t weighing like a boulder on my back. You see how well that worked out.

The three of us arrive at the top at the same time. Most of the crew have moved to the flag, but a few stragglers are gathering the tents, tables, and chairs. We commandeer some bottled water and some pastries from the crew’s table.

Food and water in hand, we each grab a chair and pull it toward the edge of the canyon.

Willow’s in the middle, of course, with Braveheart and I flanking her. She reaches out and grabs our hands, lacing her fingers with ours.

“The way I see it,” she says, evidently not caring if our drones record anything we say in our last minutes alive, “we have one hour, maybe two at the most. Can we all agree to let go of any petty jealousies or arguments?”

“We already have,” Braveheart tells her. “We’re a team to the end.”

How she manages a bittersweet smile, I’ll never know. I guess we’re all realists. It’s one of the many things I love about her.

“Scooch closer,” she urges.

We inch closer until our chair legs touch, then she pulls our hands onto her thighs.

“Pretty,” she says as she gazes at our intertwined fingers. I was thinking the same thing. Her little tan fingers are woven with Braveheart’s clawed purple fingers on one thigh and my blue fingers on the other.

“Tell me about your name, Braveheart,” she says as she looks straight ahead at the teams running across the bowl.

They’re getting smaller and smaller, but when they’re mostly out of sight, we’ll be able to watch to the bitter end on the small screens on our personal drones. Maybe we’ll be so engrossed in the program we won’t see the impending method of our death.

Braveheart

“It was an off-the-books operation,” I say. Now that I’ve discovered my emotions, I’ll have to work to keep my voice level and not relive the mission.

“The Feds wanted a continent on planet Ethos. We were never told why we went on missions, but I imagine it was mineral-rich, something they needed for weapons or munitions. When Zedd just said today’s contest would be easy, it reminded me of that day. Our handlers described our mission like that. They said it would be a surgical strike. Get in, kill the natives, and get out.”

I take a breath and focus on the grit in my mouth and the sand in my nose, keeping myself in the here and now on Blanterra, rather than the lush jungles of Ethos.

“They told us from infancy we had no feelings, then spent every day of our life hurting us so badly we pushed our emotions so deep inside we lost them. They told us to kill the natives as if we would be spraying herbicide on crops, not sending sentient people to their deaths.”

I pause and look at Willow’s little hand in mine. It’s a relief to focus on this, on our connection, rather than this shitty memory or our impending deaths.

“They didn’t do their job well enough with me. Despite how hard they tried to beat them out of me, I knew I had emotions. I didn’t want to kill people, but I’d done it many times. It’s what soldiers do.

“But the word ‘natives’ didn’t mean an enemy’s fighting forces. It meant non-combatants and children.

“I managed to separate from my team so I could control my own actions without being observed. Not following orders meant death. That was certain. What I would do if I came upon innocents, I didn’t know, but I wanted to be by myself when faced with the challenge.

“I wound up in a valley. As stark as this one is…” I gesture in front of us to the barren, sandy wasteland below, “Imagine the opposite. Filled with lush blue jungle trees and foliage.

“I’m not sure what drew me to the cave, or why I entered it. The first thing that struck me was the dark. In the murk, at the back of the cave, was the eyeshine. Dozens of green eyes blinking at me. Their red bodies were camouflaged against the red cave walls. All I could see were their eyes.

“When I looked closer, it was women and children.”

I take a deep breath and notice Willow is squeezing my hand in support.

“I imagine what I looked like to them, this huge warrior in hard-shell armor with weapons dripping off him. They’d heard the sound of laserfire for the past hour. They knew they were dead, and I was the method of their destruction.”

I don’t say it, but it strikes me I know exactly how they must have felt. I’m feeling it right now. Knowing your death is imminent and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Feeling powerless is terrible.

“I knew if anyone found them, knew I’d let them live, I’d be put down. That’s what they called it, that or euthanize. Never killed. Killed isn’t for products, not for geneslaves. Even though I knew it meant my death sentence, I said, ‘Stay here. Stay quiet. Your open eyes gave you away. If anyone else enters, keep your eyes closed’.

“After I turned to leave, one of the women called after me, ‘Brave heart.’ She knew. She knew I was breaking my peoples’ rule. She knew I’d risked my own skin to save theirs. ‘Brave heart,’ she called as I left and never looked back.”

Willow stands and slips onto my lap, tucks her head under my chin, and holds me tight. Perhaps the two best moments in my life are the one I just told her about and this moment right here. That first moment I knew, truly, deep in my marrow, that I’m not a product, not just a geneslave, that I have a soul.

Despite our impending death, this moment, with this loving female in my arms, is magical. I know deep in my marrow, that I am capable of love.

I guess I should finish the story.

“I never thought of calling myself anything other than 1708 until that day. After that moment, it was what I called myself in my mind. Even Valor called me 1708 until I introduced myself to you that first day in our cell.”