Page 53 of Souls of Steel
“Please, stop. I’m not in the mood for your lectures right now.”
“All right, hatchling,”he said. “I’ll give you a break tonight. But make no mistake, I won’t allow you to ruin your own life because of stupid human sensibilities.”
As August dimmed the lights, I covered my head with the pillow and tried to tune Typhon out. It was useless, but he kept his promise and didn’t bug me again anyway. I fell asleep to the sound of Selene’s soft breathing and couldn’t help but think that maybe, Typhon was right.
The Fields of Mercury
Selene
In a perhaps unsurprising development, the third stage of the tournament involved an aircraft battle. Its location was a little more shocking, and I only found out about it ten minutes before we were supposed to head there.
A drone came to see us in the mess hall and summoned us to the hangars. When we arrived there, Commander Trevor ushered every person who’d qualified into a large vessel unlike anything I’d been on before. It was part of The Crius Guard Corps and I realized this meant we’d be leaving the asteroid. “Sir, if I may ask, where are we going?”
“The Fields of Mercury,” he replied.
He didn’t provide any further explanations, but he didn’t have to. Those simple four words made my situation more than clear.
Mercury had suffered so much damage in the Great Apsid Wars that an asteroid belt had formed around it out of fragments of the ruined planet. Unlike The Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, the meteoroids in the area were very small. To make matters worse, going there brought us very close to apsid territory. While they no longer attacked Terra directly and I now knew they didn’t actually live on the Sun, they still came here on a regular basis. That meant we’d be exposed to a possible alien attack for no real reason other than entertainment.
“Why in Tartarus’s name are we going there?” I couldn’t help but ask my fellow Chimera Warriors.
“It’s not so unusual for a fighter to head to The Fields of Mercury,” Brendan said with a sigh. “We’re expected to be familiar with the area, just in case we’re summoned for another battle in the future. Everyone else will likely know it pretty well, even if the natural conditions always change a lot depending on the passage of time.”
Was it really that simple? Was the king jumping through all these hoops just to get rid of me? But why? He could’ve just had me arrested on Earth if I’d been so inconvenient to him. And assuming he hadn’t realized I was a threat at the time, there were plenty of other ways to kill me that wouldn’t involve a trip to the Sun.
Then again, maybe I was making things more complicated than they were. Everyone else took the trip in stride. As we were guided to sit down and prepare for warp flight, I heard someone make a comment about his missed breakfast. Two men were enthusing about how much they’d enjoyed themselves the night before with the women of Tartarus Base. “I missed Persephone’s Plaza. Everything’s so easy when you just have to stick it in.”
“I know, right?”
Fortunately, I wasn’t forced to listen to the nauseating exchange for much longer. The seats were sealed and the metal around us started to vibrate. “Warp flight activating now,” a robotic voice reported.
I instinctively closed my eyes, although I knew I didn’t have to. The warp engine was fueled by tachyons, like everything else, but the shields around the vessel kept everyone safe from the radiation. Maybe I was just trying to pretend, for a little while longer, that this wasn’t happening.
What a childish thought. I’d always been aware that I didn’t belong here. Going to The Fields of Mercury didn’t change that in any way. It was just another step on my journey, nothing more.
Maybe the others had a point and this wasn’t such a special day, after all.
“Not really,”Sphinx whispered in my head.“They’re just as nervous as you. They’re just doing a better job at hiding it. Don’t worry about them and focus on the task.”
“That’d be easier if I knew what that task was.”
“It’s not so difficult to guess, but even if I’m wrong, I can still help you.”
Memories not my own drifted into my consciousness, clear, but concise, sliding into my mind like the pieces of an incomplete puzzle. It took a few moments for me to assimilate the information, but when I did, I had a clearer image of how I was supposed to move around The Fields of Mercury.
“I can’t show you more, because it would overwhelm you. Some things, you have to experience by yourself. But at the very least, you won’t be a complete newbie now.”
“Thanks,”I replied. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“To be fair, young Selene, this whole thing is my fault. I’m the one who dragged you into this. If not for me, you wouldn’t have come to the academy in the first place.”
“And I’ll always be grateful for your help, no matter what happens.”
Sphinx said nothing, although I got the feeling she wasn’t so sure I was right. Had she begun to doubt her choice? I hoped not. Yes, I was upset because of what had happened the day before, but I wouldn’t let that stop me.
People died every day. Lies and corruption surrounded us. That wasn’t anything new. If I wanted to change things, I wasn’t going to do it by cowering from the truth.
This tournament might not make a difference, but at least it would keep me alive. Or so I hoped.
