Michael Mammay - Spaceside

For my wife, for more reasons than I can count.

Despite what I did, I never spent a day in prison.

Thats pretty fucked up.

I spent maybe an hour in a holding cell before what passed for my trial, but that proved to be a formality. The powers that be had decided my fate before I ever came out of stasis after the journey back from Cappa. More accurately, theyd decided upon the politically expedient course, and my fate happened to be attached to it.

In technical language it was called retirement in lieu of prosecution. The official judgment included a lot of legalese about my thirty-plus years of exemplary service, exigent circumstances, the role of the commander on the ground, and that sort of nonsense. I even got to keep my pension, though most of that goes to Sharon.

Thats probably the real punishment. She left me about eighteen months ago, six months after I returned, though some of that time we staged for the optics. She didnt enjoy being married to a pariahit didnt suit her. I dont blame her. Id have avoided it too, if I could have. Being recognized on the street, being followed by the press... those things got old fast. So we called it quits as amicably as a couple can do that kind of thing. I took the circus with me, and she took half my moneyits how that goes. She could have made it worse, but she didnt. I will always appreciate that. Soon after, the hoopla mostly died down to a point where I could function, so I was suddenly truly alone.

The transition took a while to set in: leaving the military, where my entire life had followed a pretty tight regimen on a day-to-day basis. Suddenly, I had nowhere to be, nothing that had to be done, no emergencies, no enemies. After about ninety days of that, I decided to do something other than sit around in my new apartment and drink all day. Thats how I came to be strapped into a high-tech battle-simulation suit with a bunch of other executives, playing the galaxys most expensive game of laser tag. Admittedly, there were a few other steps along the path to that moment.

Battlesim! was a hybrid live-action/virtual-reality (VR) immersive game where teams of up to twenty players worked physically inside of a simulated city to try to outfight the other team and achieve an objective. In our case, we had to capture a building, which in our virtual-reality world looked like a small three-story hotel. We also got bonus points if we eliminated everyone on the other team. I had some skill in that area. The thing that made it challenging was that the other team always shot back, trying to accomplish the same objective. Battlesim! started as WarTrainer 14, designed by Varitech Production CompanyVPCas a combat simulator for the military. Unfortunately, the cost upon completion exceeded the government budget and another company got the bid, so VPC did the next best thing.

They turned it into a game for rich people.

I definitely wasnt richfar from it. Thats why I had to find a job, and VPC was as good a job as any. They really liked doing team-building events for their executives, so it was only a matter of time until somebody in the HR department decided it would be good for morale if we all ran around a little bit inside the simulation one afternoon and tried to virtually kill each other. I held an alternate opinion. But since they employed me and didnt make me do any real work other than schmoozing at corporate events, I gave them a pass and played along.

Inside the game, my team had been led by Albert Claxton, the CFO, who had promptly gotten himself and most of the rest of our players killed in an ill-fated frontal assault. That may have been on purpose, though, since the other teams captain was Javier Sanchez, our CEO. Probably not great politics to wipe out the boss.

Not that I was good at politics.

Still, this left us outnumbered fifteen to three, with me and my two remaining teammates hiding in an out-of-the-way building, discussing strategy as the other team combed the grid looking for us. I came into the game planning to make it look good but not really expecting to expend much effort. I had a chance to make that a reality now by dying valiantly in a heroic charge, then joining in the celebration of the bosss win.

Thing is, Im not wired that way.

I decided to beat the boss, even if it got me fired. And with all of the higher-ups from my team in virtual body bags, the other two members of my team were staring at me through creepy, bug-eyed virtual-reality helmets, looking for guidance. Id probably get them fired too.

At least Id have some drinking buddies.

We cant attack the building. We dont have enough firepower, I said. They both nodded, either out of understanding or mere acquiescence. So our only option is to try to draw them out, trap them, then eliminate them. Once theyre all dead, we can walk in. They probably wont leave anybody defending, because theyll all want to be part of the hunt.

But there are fifteen of them, said Kaitlyn Woo, vice president of Engineering. She could see the fifteen red symbols in her heads-up display, same as I did.

Exactly, I said. So theyll be overconfident, especially after that first little action we did. Theyre not thinking about this as a battle right now; theyre thinking of it as a mop-up operation. A fox hunt.

Sure, but five-to-one odds are still five to one, said Derek Birchfeld, deputy VP of Logistics. And we used up a lot of our assets in the main assault. Sometimes overconfidence is just good sense.

I smiled, though they couldnt see it with the helmets. Claxton had brought in an airstrike at the worst possible time, as our aircraft couldnt fire because wed put ourselves into the kill zone. So we had no support from above. But Id scrolled through what we had left, and I had a plan. Everyone playing the game was intelligentleaders in their fieldbut theyd stepped into my world. They saw individual moves, where I saw combinations. They thought sequentially, while I thought simultaneously. It wasnt their fault. I had a lifetime of practice, and for all the complexity of Battlesim!, it was still a game, and simple compared to real combat.

And even if I did something stupid, no one would die.

Kaitlyn, if I wasnt here and you were in charge, what would you do? Be honest.

She thought about it for a few seconds. Id expect them to be out looking for us, leaving the building undefended, like you said. So Id try to get around to this side over here. She pointed to the three-dimensional map my helmet had projected between us. Id move fast, and coming from this direction, theres a good chance they wouldnt see us, so maybe we could take them by surprise. We could get into the building, then make a stand there, from a position of strength.

Exactly. Thats the textbook answer, and the only way to win. I could almost feel her smiling at my praise. I wasnt lying. Shed given the answer any competent junior officer would have come up with.

Except, of course, we couldnt do that.

Because in this case, outnumbered five to one, the textbook way to win meant sure defeat. What do you think the other side is thinking right now? Not their initial thought. Once they sit for a second and plan. What will they expect us to do?

After a second Woo nodded her head, getting it. Theres a reason shes a VP. Theyll expect us to do exactly what I just said we should do.

Right. And theyll hit us right here. I indicated a spot about halfway to our target building. Theyve got good sightlines from the roof of this building over here, and they can put somebody on the ground over here so we cant slide out the back door.

So we attack them in those spots, said Birchfeld.

Not exactly, I said. As soon as we do that, theyll know were not doing what they thought, and they have enough people left where theyll change up their plan and beat us anyway.