I aimed the rifle at Kybit and fired. Cheap scrapshot exploded off her body, and she stumbled back as smoking welts appeared on her steel face and chest. Down below amongst the large crates in Cargo Bay 9, I emptied my magazine into the Nekomata. Already I was reaching for a second mag, but Kybit was faster. She was nearly upon me, staring blankly as she reached out with clawed hands.

  Raising the barrel of my weapon straight at her face, I pressed the trigger just as she reached an arm’s length away. Her head snapped back as thirty rounds emptied into her skull. The gun clicked empty, and I threw it away. It was useless. She had closed the range in only a few seconds. Pulling out a heat-knife, the low-tech survival tool would do little against the Nekomata. I slashed downward, and she caught the blade in her arm. The knife sunk a little into servo-tendons, but before I could pull the blade out, she turned and hit me with the palm of her other hand.

  I was sent flying among the scattering cargo crates. Slamming into the side of a box, I gasped as the breath was knocked out of my lungs. But I was used to these kinds of attacks by now. I had braced for the impact, and I was already on my knees again. Whipping my pistol out of its holster, I fired nine energy bolts into Kybit. The tiny plings of energy burned quite uselessly against the Nekomata’s tough exterior. And even as I went through the motions perfectly, it was all just to delay the alien.

  Kybit rushed me again, but I rolled away, using the cargo crates as obstacles between us. Trying to gain more distance, my hand jammed another magazine into the pistol, and I kept firing potshots at the Nekomata. She flinched with every hit, but Kybit’s powerful servo-tendons were far stronger than my comparatively weak muscles. Slowly but surely, the chechen game was resolving to its single conclusion.

  She raced, catching me from behind. My heart skipped a beat, and as I spun around drew a second heat-knife, Kybit again moved faster. Her hand snatched my arm and crushed with the strength of steel.

  I cried out in pain as the nerve-mesh on my forearm tightened, simulating the pressure of her grip. I felt a terrible jolt, and everything from my shoulder went uselessly numb.

  “Your right arm is broken!” Amon yelled from the upper walkway, overlooking the mock battlefield. “What will you do now!?”

  The Nekomata playfully let go of my arm.

  I grunted and rolled forward past her, picking up the heat-knife as Kybit’s fingers reached for the back of my shirt. I slashed at her back of her leg. It was a shallow cut, but enough to make the Nekomata stumble and fall. She fell to a knee, but her hand found purchase on my shirt, making sure I couldn’t get away. I sliced again, cutting the cloth and falling backward before scampering to a safe distance. Kybit was down a leg. I was down an arm. Perhaps if she was human, this would’ve evened the odds. As it stood, I had already lost.

  With only one good leg, she practically leapt at me, and I was too tired to get away in time. Her icy hand reached for the back of my throat. I turned and swiped again, a desperate strike taking a few fingers. What happened next was almost automatic. I thrusted the knife towards her eye while Kybit brushed the strike away with a fingerless palm. Had it been real, the bones in my wrist would’ve snapped. Instead, the nerve-mesh tightened. I fell back onto the floor with the Nekomata standing above me, staring expressionless in her victory.

  I was suddenly very angry. We had played out a thousand variations of this fight. But no matter how much I improved, how much I practiced, Kybit won every time. I had protested to Amon that I got to use far more powerful weapons when we were working, but he simply responded that I had to learn how to survive against a more powerful opponent. As he put it, out there, it’s work to keep the Aphelion flying. In here, it’s training for the real fight.

  It’s the easiest thing in the world when we rely upon our unmatched technology. It’s another to make oneself into a weapon. Or so he tried to pound in my head.

  Kybit finally hesitated in the bout, looking up to Amon to see whether he wanted her to continue. Sometimes, he allowed it, to give me a respect for injury. But I was not going to let this be like all the other times. With my teeth, I ripped the nerve-mesh off my wrist, and I suddenly regained feeling in my fingers again. Kybit twitched, her attention was upon me again. But it was too late, I had already reached into a pocket of my trousers and produced an electro-grenade. I had “burrowed” it from Rykar’s workshop.

  A flash of fear crossed Kybit’s eyes as she realized what it was.

  “I win.” I spat as I popped the release, knowing full well what it was going to do to me too.

  She tried to bash the grenade away, but I slammed it against my chest. Even the Nekomata wouldn’t be able to pry it from me in time. She tried to jump away, but I tripped her good leg as she leaped, causing her to stumble to the ground next to me. The grenade went off.

  A bubble of blue energy went off, crackling in Cargo Bay 9. Kybit cried out in pain as her entire body shuddered and sizzled, and she convulsed on the floor. Meanwhile, the nerve-mesh undergarment, which covered my entire frame, overloaded in spectacular fashion. I screamed in agony as all the nerves in my body were stimulated as if I was being stabbed with a thousand daggers. The mesh melted on my skin, burning me with thin wisps of white wiring that curled off like broken spiderwebs.

  But this was nothing compared to my delicious victory. In my delirium, I looked up at Amon, searching for his expression. He stoically observed down at us with his arms crossed. Finally, he turned. His feet fell heavily on the grated stairwell as he climbed down to the floor of the Cargo Bay. A few minutes later, and he stood over our broken bodies as expressionless as ever. I grinned at him, smiling with spite as I beat his impossible task.

  Amon looked on impassively as I saw Kybit’s real body approach around a corner. It was set to an automatic mode, and as it turned the sparking training dummy over on its side, I saw it press down on a button near the back of the neck. Kybit’s spine—the real part of her—unlatched. Her body lifted the segmented vertebrae, and with a grotesque motion to human muscles, snapped it in along her back.

  Her dead expression changed, and she looked down at me unamused. “You cheated,” she said, annoyed.

  “He thought outside of the box.” Amon came to my defense, and I glanced at him surprised. I thought I was going to get an earful of scathing criticism, but Amon seemed pleased by my tactic.

  He bent down and offered me a hand up. “You won’t be allowed to smuggle in a weapon next time, but you finally get it. I want you to win, again and again. We will do this until you win every time.”

  “That’s not fair!” I shouted, angry at the man. I had only resorted to the electro-grenade out of sheer desperation. And now he wanted me to go even further? I didn’t have any other ideas for how to beat Kybit! That was it! This was me spitting in the face of Amon’s training, and he wanted me to go further!?

  Feeling returned to my body, and I practically ripped the rest of the nerve-mesh off as I rose to my knees, batting Amon’s hand away. “No! No more! I’m done with this training!” I yelled, the built-up frustration of the past few days finally exploding out.

  Amon blinked in surprise. He had finally found the real limit of the normally obedient Vas.

  “Never again! I don’t care what you do!” I shouted, and I stormed off.

  …

  Amon caught up to me in the corridor. I didn’t want to talk to him, but thankfully, he was quiet as he followed me. I didn’t know where I was going to in the Aphelion, but often I didn’t need to know. The ship was so big that you didn’t need to decide until much later. Nevertheless, I found myself walking down a corridor with many pipes and yellow girders. I realized I had taken Amon to the hall where the Xurak abducted me.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The old man knew this place too. He had watched the recordings of my kidnapping. I hoped it hurt him just as much as he did me.

  Amon finally spoke, looking around. “I am sorry that I’ve been so harsh on you. I know you hate the training sessions, but I allowed it to continue. And because of that, now I see I’ve earned a grudge. I apologize. I never meant to hurt you.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said flatly as we walked the corridor. “I have to do whatever you say. It’s not like you gave me any other choice.”

  I suppose that was the difference between us. When Amon felt anger, it was often the raging fire that burned hotter than even the ones which scorched Charys, his homeworld. Those embers always simmered somewhere under the man. But when I felt anger—the kind where I wanted to hurt someone back—I turned ice cold. Just as Amon had Charys, I had Ghiza VI.

  Amon glanced down at me. “I don’t do this because I enjoy it, Vas. I do it because I also don’t have a choice. I do it because I’m afraid.”

  I snorted in disbelief. “You don’t look it.”

  Amon raised his arm at my chest, stopping me in the corridor. He came round and fell to a single knee, looking me straight in the eye. Placing a trembling hand on my shoulder, his face was expressionless like it always was. But I watched that shaking hand with the shock and horror as if Amon revealed his darkest secret. It was easily missed, that is, if you didn’t know the peculiar ways Amon Russ bared his soul.

  “Has Ingrish told you about the Golden Court? Has she told you how they kill yet? They use the most powerful stimulants in the galaxy to increase their powers. What Ingrish has is a mild concoction she makes herself. They can kill just by being in the same solar system as you.” Amon snapped his fingers. “A mind poison in your head, a single thought delivered from a telepath light years away. And just like that, you’re dead before you even know it. You think me and Kybit are being unfair? The Golden Court is only the beginning.”

  I blinked. My anger melted away as I saw a flash of hurt appear across Amon’s face. It was so easy to forget there was a heart under that man.

  “You feel it too, don’t you? You’re old enough now. The walls are slowly closing in. It’s the same thing I felt when I found you on Ghiza VI. Maybe we’ll get away this time. Maybe not. But even if we beat the Golden Court, it’s only a matter of time before someone else worse comes along. Someone worse always comes along, and then you know what happens next. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to save you in time, Vas. I’m so sorry.” Amon looked ashen. I had never seen him like this in years.

  My wrath had vanished under Amon’s sorrow, but I was not about to let him off so easily. “If there was always Sanctuary, why couldn’t we just go there from the beginning? Why can’t we just be safe there?”

  Amon sighed. “You don’t understand. Sanctuary isn’t a home. It’s the place humans go to to die, where we won’t find our bodies on a dissection table. I’m breaking the rules taking Ingrish there. I want her to live out the rest of her days safe. But for you and me, all we’ll do is watch the rest of our species grow old and die. You’ll have me for a few centuries, and then I’ll be gone. And then you’ll be the last one at Sanctuary, alone, on the other end of the galaxy. At least on this side, you have a chance of finding someone else.”

  “We haven’t run into another human for seven years!” I argued back.

  “I didn’t say it was a good chance. But over here, there’s at least a little hope. You can search for someone to spend your life with—someone who’s not going to die before you. You won’t have that in Sanctuary. I don’t want you to spend the rest of your days in someone else’s tomb.”

  “What about your friend? The person who gave you the warship?” I asked. “Isn’t there anyone we can ask for help?”

  Amon glanced to the side, looking away. “That’s complicated. Let’s just say I’m not on speaking terms. I chose you over the Xurak’s offer, a single human over two hundred and fifty. I can go to the Dalfaen perhaps. A few dozen other species too. But they won’t be able to help us, not from the likes of the Golden Court.”

  I had some sense of the weight on Amon’s shoulders, but only then did I appreciate the burden. Amon bore the entire world of the Aphelion on his back. He’d been holding it together for centuries. And even as the universe was crashing down around us, he was still holding it together, no matter how much it crushed him underneath. I lowered my eyes.

  “How did you beat them last time? How did you get away?” I asked.

  Amon looked at me straight in the eye. “Last time was easy. They thought Ingrish was dead. And for me, there was no one left for them to kill.”

  …

  “I’m done with the nerve-mesh. I don’t need you to teach me how to endure pain,” I said quietly in the mess hall. I looked at Amon with my red eyes as he prepared a meal.

  Amon glanced my way and nodded. “Very well.”

  I played with my eating utensils. “I don’t understand how you want me to beat Kybit again and again. It’s impossible. She’s stronger than me. She’s faster than me. She can’t be hurt by my weapons. Maybe I can find another tactic once or twice, but every time?”

  “Come over here.” Amon gestured with the knife as he was cutting the side of some large animal he purchased on Ignavus III.

  I jumped off the chair and joined him in the kitchen. He had already emptied the creature’s insides into a bucket, and he was busy skinning the animal. With his sleeves rolled up, the old man worked, cutting the pelt off.

  “Do you know why we humans were masters of this galaxy for so long? Why no one could challenge us except the Aberrants? This creature here is called a Dakka. See its claws? See its teeth? It could rend you apart in seconds. It’s stronger. It’s faster. But we used to raise the creatures as livestock. How?”

  I looked confused at the animal, not understanding the lesson. “Because we have more powerful weapons?”

  Amon shook his head. “There was a time we didn’t have more powerful weapons. We know this because pioneers used to crash on feral worlds, where the terraformers’ great projects had gone awry. Their weapons failed them shortly, and then they had nothing except farm tools against monsters. And nearly every time, they conquered those worlds. Why?”

  “Because they were smarter,” I answered. “Their intellects conquered those worlds.”

  Amon shook his head again. “That’s part of it, true. But the machines possessed more processing power than entire populations, and we beat them. True innovation requires more than smarts. It requires courage, the ability to look at yourself and the assumptions you make.” Amon tapped his head. “Consider a fight with the Dakka. You don’t have any powerful weapons, so the only idea that enters your head is to contend with the Dakka where it is strong. And of course it tears you apart. The rules you set yourself demanded you lose.”

  Amon pointed to where I should start peeling the pelt, and I obeyed. The wet flesh did not cause me to shudder, and I started working alongside Amon.

  “The art of combat is breaking your own unfounded assumptions. Would it have entered into your mind to set a trap? Catch a smaller animal and lure the Dakka into falling into a pit. Now the battlefield itself has changed. It is no longer a game of claws but a game of will. The Dakka falls and you eat.”

  “That’s not a fair answer. What if the Dakka ambushes you? You can’t just tell someone to set a trap then.”

  “True.” Amon ripped the last of the pelt off. “But I ask, how was that person ambushed? Did they go wandering into that jungle unawares? Did they leave themselves open? Did it occur to them that the true battle was fought and lost with that poor decision?”

  Amon leaned on the counter and looked at me. “The fight is not when it comes time for the guns and the swords, that is the last part. The battlefield is everywhere, always, with every breath you take. You are fighting it right now. Every second, every moment, even as we prepare this meal.”

  “You can’t predict everything. You can’t know everything.” I protested, realizing the scope of what Amon was saying.

  “No, but you think you do. And that is the problem. When I provided you those weapons, you assumed you could not take your own, until I pushed you to do so. In your many fights with Kybit, did you once consider setting a trap beforehand? You know the basics, where the battlefield is, when you have to fight. Did you think about the environment? Cargo Bay 9 is directly under one of the ship’s main conduit nodes. A shot to the ceiling would’ve caused a minor electrical overload. I set the conditions to structure the training, but everything else is your freedom. That is what war is to the man strong enough to conquer it—freedom.”

  Amon pointed to the skinned Dakka with his knife. “You don’t have to win every battle. Just not lose the important ones. We genetically altered the Dakka, so it would never think to use its claws or fangs again. That was its last fight. Now it’s a delicacy. Help me carry this into the oven.”

  I assisted him, and I struggled under the large creature as we placed it into a roasting chamber Amon had installed. The old man rinsed his hands in the sink. “This was meant to be a meal for the anniversary we found you. But given all that’s happened, I want this to be a meal for your first victory. You’ll have the best cut of the animal.” Amon cleaned the knife.

  I suddenly felt a very strange feeling in my chest. It was on those rare occasions when I truly excelled at something, like reading my first data-slate without Ingrish’s help or when I shot my first perfect score in the holo-range.

  “Humanity has won every war the galaxy has ever thrown us because we were the only species who knew how to break the rules. That is what’s coursing through your blood, Vas. That is what is on the other side of this terrible lot we were given. We were born to beat impossible odds.”

  “We didn’t win this last war,” I curtly replied. I didn’t mean to sour the moment, but it seemed necessary to point out.

  “No,” Amon admitted, “but we took the devils down with us. And we made them pay. Listen Vas, I am teaching you all this because the next time someone like the Xurak comes…” Amon handed me the cleaned knife, ready to plunge into the cooked meat. “They’ll be the ones who have to live in fear of you.”