CHAPTER 9 — TRIAL BY FIRE
"Control is just violence that learned patience."
—Gareth Lancer
Arcadia's dawn wasn't sunlight—it was the sterile, bright white of the atmospheric dome, spilling into the barracks to wake cadets too busy to remember what real warmth felt like.
Unit Hound stood inside Simulation Dome Three, a colossal sphere of glass and nanometal that could rewrite reality on command. Terrain generators hummed beneath their feet, loading environments from a database of humanity's worst tactical nightmares.
Vice Commander Rael stood before them, his cybernetic arm catching the artificial light. His expression was neutral, which meant he was about to make their lives significantly more difficult.
"Today's exercise is not about winning," he said, his voice carrying the weight of too many last orders given to dying soldiers. "It's about control. Control of yourselves, of each other, of the chaos that wants to eat you alive. Welcome to Trial by Fire."
He turned, his grey eyes sweeping over them like targeting lasers.
"Protocol: Broken Wing."
The holographic environment stabilized around them with a sound like reality clicking into place. They stood in the ruins of a pre-Erebus city block, but something was immediately wrong. The air tasted sharp, chemical. Simulated fires burned with an unnatural blue-white light—the color indicating highly flammable gas saturation.
A siren echoed in the virtual distance, designed to trigger primal fear.
Lyra adjusted her wrist-pad. "Parameters?"
Rael's voice came through their comms, emotionless: "Retrieve the core relay at grid seven. Hostile resistance: dynamic and adaptive. Civilian units: present and unstable. Collateral damage counts against your evaluation. Time limit: thirty minutes." He paused for effect. "Be advised—the air is saturated with combustible gas. I wouldn't recommend firing energy weapons unless you enjoy being cremated."
Riven cracked his knuckles, the servos in his kinetic augmentation gloves whining softly. "So basically—don't blow up the civilians, don't set ourselves on fire, and somehow complete an impossible objective. Got it."
Jade rolled her eyes. "You'll still manage to violate at least two of those parameters."
"Probably," Riven admitted cheerfully. "But I'll look good doing it."
Gareth checked his holo-readout, the blue projections hovering over his forearm showing terrain analysis and threat assessments. His system pulsed softly, warming up.
[Adaptive field active.]
[Environmental analysis: Complete.]
[Recommendation: Proceed with caution. Explosions contraindicated.]
He inhaled slowly, the chemical tang of the air sharp in his lungs. "Let's move. Stay tight, watch crossfire, and nobody be a hero. Heroes die dramatic deaths that look impressive in reports."
"Inspiring," Lyra muttered, but she was already moving into tactical position.
They moved like a unit that had trained together for months—flowing through rubble-strewn streets, clearing corners with practiced efficiency. Lyra took overwatch from elevated positions, her photonic abilities giving her perfect sight lines. Riven charged ahead with reckless enthusiasm, his gauntlets sparking. Jade provided cover with her telekinesis, and Corren laid down suppressive plasma arcs.
Gareth coordinated quietly, his predictive system feeding him probabilities, mapping out scenarios seconds before they manifested. For a while, it was surgical. Efficient. Almost perfect.
Then the simulation remembered it was supposed to be hell.
A blast rocked the street hard enough to make buildings sway. Emergency lights bathed everything in red, and somewhere close by, civilians started screaming—not real people, but simulations realistic enough to trigger every protective instinct.
Riven spun, ready to return fire at whatever had caused the explosion.
Gareth's hand shot out, catching his arm. "Hold. It's bait."
"How can you tell?"
"Because none of them blinked," Gareth's eyes tracked the crowd, processing micro-details. "Real people blink when they're startled. These didn't. They're synthetic."
Riven stared at the frozen civilians, then at Gareth. "That's... disturbingly observant."
"Or just observant. The disturbing part is subjective."
Then the ambush triggered—exactly as predicted.
Black-armored units erupted from concealed positions, their armor absorbing light like holes in reality. Their eyes glowed red with targeting systems that locked onto Unit Hound.
The squad scattered for cover, training overriding panic.
Lyra fired controlled bursts from her elevated position. Jade deployed a telekinetic barrier that pulsed outward, crushing nearby enemies to dust. Corren's plasma arcs carved through concrete and armor. Riven was a grinning madman, pummeling constructs until they became smoldering ore.
Gareth darted between them—precise, silent, every move an algorithm of instinct meeting training. His system flared blue in his peripheral vision.
[Enemy pattern: Replicated human AI construct.]
[Counter protocol initiating...]
He deflected attack after attack, but he was too focused on the constructs in front of him. He didn't notice the building Lyra was on crumbling until he heard the loud thud and the evacuation sound that accompanied a "death" in the simulation.
Gareth gritted his teeth, determination surging through him—a raw, unfamiliar emotion. Lyra had been their primary ranged support. Without her, the constructs pressed harder.
The four of them held their ground, but one by one they fell, leaving only him and Riven.
Riven fought like a demon, his kinetic augmentation seeping into everything he touched. He wielded rubble, debris, even Corren's discarded railgun. But the constructs kept coming, and they were about to be overrun.
That was when Gareth's system flared.
[ANALYSIS COMPLETED: CONSTRUCT PATTERN DETECTED]
[SUGGESTED COUNTERMEASURE: CONTROLLED CHAIN REACTION]
[PROBABILITY OF SUCCESS: 96.7%]
A plan formed in his head, his mind running through simulations at lightning speed. He saw a path—a dangerous, borderline-suicidal path that led straight to the beacon.
"Riven! Cover me! We're going through them!"
"Are you insane?!" Rven shouted, even as he complied, his augmented fists creating a whirlwind of destruction.
Gareth didn't answer. He moved, a blur of controlled motion. He wasn't just fighting; he was calculating, redirecting, using the environment. He kicked a loose power cell into a group of constructs, then used a precisely aimed plasma shot from a fallen enemy weapon to ignite it. The resulting explosion wasn't large, but it was perfectly placed, creating a chain reaction that disabled a whole squad.
They fought their way to grid seven, a desperate, brutal slog. Gareth's mind was a storm of calculations and rising panic. He could feel the clock ticking down.
And then, as suddenly as it began, it was over.
All the constructs froze. Riven looked at him with sheer relief.
Time was up.
They stood, panting, in the sudden silence. The beacon at grid seven remained untouched, twenty meters away, taunting them.
The world dissolved back into the metallic stillness of the chamber. The other teams were at various points in the simulation, none having reached their objective either.
Rael's voice broke the silence, dripping with disappointment. "Hound Squad. Mission failed. All of you... my office. Now."
As they filed out, sweat-soaked and defeated, Gareth caught Lyra's eye. She gave him a small, tired smile that didn't reach her eyes. He had kept them alive, but he had failed the mission. The weight of that failure was a new, heavy feeling in his chest, one his analytical mind couldn't easily process.
He had learned to fight, to adapt, to lead in combat. Now, it seemed, he had to learn how to lose.