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Screams and the clash of weapons reach a fever pitch, and a warrior stumbles into the throne room of King Breon, his intestines slipping out despite his desperate attempts to hold them in.

He nearly reaches his king, reaching out a hand imploringly before falling to the floor.

Ussa enters.

Breon:

I see now, my daughter, that you have turned upon me.

The men who would not swear their sword to you lie dead and cold upon the uncaring Earth.

Why is it that you do this?

What has turned you on your own kin?

Ussa:

Oh Father I once cherished;

Why shouldn’t I?

You have grown weak in your old age.  Your enemies, long defeated, now act openly against you.  Your vassals and client states openly rebel and leave you.

You can only hold onto what your hands can reach, but your reach has grown short.

And worse, you hold mine own hands back when they reach for victory.

Breon:

And this?

This is reason enough for treason against your father?

Your king?

You are not the daughter I raised!

Ussa:

Oh how blind you are, Father!

You raised a daughter and told her you stood for noble causes.

Yet all you did was take what you wished and used those claims to justify the sword and pillage.

Your high ideals, lofty as they sound, were only air.

Now your sails are empty

and you have not even the strength to furl them.

Breon collapses to his knees.

Breon:

What will you do now then?  After you have slain me?

Ussa:

I have learned well from your knee, father.

I will follow the destiny manifest before me.

I shall conquer those places that you could not.

I will take all for my own, and what I cannot have will be ash.

All is mine, even your life.

---

Sending an entrance request, Apollonia shifted from foot to foot.

She’d done some orientations, but this was the first time she was going to meet her Response tutor.

After her . . . lack of performance during battle, when she’d panicked and not been of any use to anyone, Jaya had suggested she get a proper trainer.

A message came through; “Enter.”

The door whooshed open, and she stepped in – stopping just as quickly as she looked around the room.

“What is this?” she asked.

“Sim Chamber,” the woman at the center of the room said.

Apollonia had been told that it was Sergeant Kiseleva, but she hadn’t actually put together that it was the Response officer from the bar fight who had picked her up off the floor.

She approached the woman, who was wearing a full space suit rig, minus the helmet.

“We’re not . . . doing vacuum training, are we?” Apollonia asked nervously.

Kiseleva shook her head.  “No.  But we are going to train in zero-g.”

She pointed.  “Go through that door and suit up – all except the helmet.  Then we will turn the gravity to null and activate the program.”

Apollonia was not sure what she meant by the program, but went to obey.

She was still nervous, but she would don the suit.  Last time she’d worn one with a helmet she’d thrown up and choked.

Coming back out, Kiseleva threw something to her.  When she looked at it, she saw it was a face shield on a head strap – essentially just the front screen of a normal suit helmet.

Putting it on, the screen lit up with a Heads-Up Display – but rather than just giving a readout, it showed a false world superimposed over the real.

She recoiled at first – such augmented reality was normal for most people who could use ocular implants, but she never could use them.  Even besides that, few were so realistic and complete; over the reality of the room, she saw distant stars, and the deck beneath them looked more like the outside of a ship.

It almost made her dizzy, but she reached out and touched a wall, feeling reinforced by its solidity.

“Don’t worry yet.  First we’re going to use the room without the full overlay,” Kiseleva told her.

“So what will we do?” Apollonia asked.

Kiseleva moved her hand in the air, clearly operating some controls in her HUD and the space overlay in Apollonia’s HUD disappeared.  She only saw the room now, but with certain areas highlighted, colored spots on random areas of the walls and ceilings.

The gravity suddenly disappeared, her boots turning magnetic and her suit back stiffening so she could walk.

“We will play a game to start,” Kiseleva told her.  “When an area of the room lights up, I want you to float over to it.”

“That’s it?”

“For now,” Kiseleva replied.

All the panels that had been glowing turned off, save one.  Apollonia’s HUD flashed arrows to tell her where it was.  Turning, she pushed off the floor, aiming for the spot.

Her aim wasn’t perfect but she reached it without difficulty.  A metal handrail came out of the wall and she grabbed onto it, stopping her momentum with one foot.

She looked back to Kiseleva.  “What next?”

“Next spot,” Kiseleva told her.

Locating it, Apollonia floated over there.  They did it a third time, then Kiseleva added a new instruction.

“I want you to get there faster, rest as short a time as possible, then locate the next square and get to it.”

“Am I on a timer?  If I fail do I get ejected from the ship?” she joked.

“We’re training so that if you were out there you might not die,” Kiseleva told her calmly.

Apollonia did a double-take, then nodded.

The next section appeared and she jumped over to it, found the next and reached it.

“Good.  Now faster.”

They did it again.  Apollonia tried to give herself a stronger push, started trying to find the next square before she reached the first.

“Faster,” Kiseleva said.

She pushed harder, on the second jump slamming into the wall hard enough that her shoulder hurt.

“Better,” Kiseleva said.  “Now – don’t stop until you reach the last spot – it will be red.”

“All right.”

“That’s yes, ma’am or sir,” Kiseleva barked.

Apollonia felt an immediate resistance to saying that, but sucked up her ego.  “Yes, ma’am.”

They started.  Apollonia found that by the third jump she was going slower than the pattern.  It started to fade before she got off it, and by the time she reached the next it had faded entirely.

She looked to Kiseleva, puzzled.

“Find the next one and go!” the woman commanded.

Apollonia felt a sense of panic well up inside her, looking around for the next colored spot.

“Do not panic.  You are fine right now.  Take a moment if you need it, collect yourself, then keep going,” Kiseleva said.  “Right now is the time of practice and building confidence.”

Fine, then.  Apollonia took a deep breath and looked around.  Finding the latest colored area, she pushed over to it.

Twice more she got out of synch, but stopped and found where to go next.  It did get easier.

But it was also exhausting after awhile; her legs were starting to be sore and she had worked up quite a sweat in her suit.

“Stop,” Kiseleva called.  “Come on back down.”

“How’d I do, coach?” Apollonia asked after she landed near the woman.  She felt rather good with herself.

“You did fine,” Kiseleva said.  “You’ve gone an hour, and we will call that for today.”

“Really?  That was actually kind of fun,” Apollonia said.

“I wanted you to get more confidence moving in zero-g.  Tomorrow, we will do it with helmets on.”

Apollonia knew she must have gone pale.

“We will still have atmosphere and you will have vents on the side.  But this will help you get used to it.”

“Okay,” Apollonia said, nervously.  But she did want to do this.  She wanted to – not because Kiseleva was just making her do it or because Jaya wanted her to do it.

She focused on that as she took the suit off.

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