Hikaru's Game Chapter 5: Yose, a Hikaru no Go + Ender's Game series Crossover fanfic

Yose

Hikaru silently counted the seconds down—five, four, three, two, one—and when he hit zero, that was the moment he admitted it to himself: his family was dead, all his friends on earth were dead, everyone he ever knew in his past life was dead.

He closed his eyes, letting the numbers wash over him.

On the Polaris IV, eight months, four days, and twelve minutes had passed since launch. On earth, a hundred years had passed. Subjectively speaking, Hikaru was fifteen years, four months, and twenty-two days old. In the grand scheme of the universe…who could say how old he was?

Hikaru opened his eyes.

Through the portside window of the ship, white lines of starlight zipped by, like long glowworms eating paths through the dark. His ship was moving very fast. The Earth was very, very far away.

For the first time in a long time, Hikaru felt zero-grav vertigo hit him.

"Captain?"

Commander? said his memory.

The world abruptly shifted; his stomach roiled. His training told him to look down, he had to find his down where the enemy gate waited, because what else could he hold on to? He steadied himself against the wall, trying not to float away. He couldn't afford to be like this.

"Yeah," he said into his comm, "sorry, just spacing out there."

"Ha, good one," said his lieutenant sourly. Her voice was slightly tinny through the comm. Her name was Nase, and she was the youngest person other than him on the crew. "You got orders for us?"

Vertigo again, but this time the vertigo of memory. Yo, Shindou, you gonna tell us what to do?

Battle School was a hundred years ago in real time, earth time, three years ago in Shindou's fake time.

Don't get distracted. Now is the time to focus.

"We'll be within a light year of the outpost soon," Nase prompted him. "Sensors tell us it's pretty dead. No life signs. We going to do anything about it?"

Her hopeful tone decided it for him. "Yeah," he said. "We decelerate just enough to nuke it. But don't use the Dr. Device. We're not going to show the Buggers our best weapon, not for an abandoned outpost."

"If it's truly abandoned." Nase sounded dubious, but she wasn't the type to disobey direct orders. That was more the style of the person she'd replaced. "A'right, boss, you're the boss. You sure you won't get in deep kuso with the big bosses for this?"

He grinned. He'd get everyone on the ship talking like a Battle School bratling if it was the last thing he did. It was easy with Nase; she was young, and she already knew what "kuso" meant. "We already in kuso, ne? The IF can't do anything worse than throw us out here to the Buggers."

"Are you sure? You could end up like Hong."

His grin faded. "Send the orders down to engineering. Have those nukes ready in an hour."

"…Yes, sir."

- 0 − 0 -

"Shebang, sheboom, them Buggers go kaboom," said a forty-something-year-old, once-respectable engineer. "All done and blown up, sir. I like orders like that. Can we have more orders like that?"

"The maps say yes," Hikaru responded lightly. "Bugger time is in less than a fortnight."

Yose, said Sai.

As Hikaru left engineering, he could see the crew practically vibrating with nervous excitement. Fear, too, but Hikaru had drilled most of that out of them. Visible fear anyway. Still plenty of nightmares going around.

He tried not to jump when his comm buzzed to life.

"Sir, message on the ansible, sir." Jakert the communications officer was a nervous young man, not much older than Nase—not the youngest, but the baby of the crew nonetheless. "I, uh, put it up on your screen by accident, so I saw—"

"That's all right," Hikaru sighed. "Nothing is really confidential on this ship."

Jakert seemed even more skittish than usual. His voice cracked. "I'll let you read it on your own."

Alarmed, but trying not to show it, Hikaru pushed himself through the corridors of the ship at a normal pace, even stopping for a bathroom break on the way. He took his time. Nothing like peeing into a vacuum tube to make you feel better about taking the IF's crap. As he eliminated (that was the word the IF liked), he wondered if his parents had needed something like this at the end, if they'd ever gotten so sick and helpless they couldn't go to the toilet normally.

Don't think about them, he told himself as his urine flowed through the tubes to be recycled. Don't think, don't think.

Always think, said Sai.

Don't think, he told himself fiercely.

After sanitizing his hands he headed to the command room, where he saw the message Jakert had gotten all worked up about.

It wasn't about the abandoned outpost.

ALL POLARIS- AND VIRGO-CLASS STARSHIPS WITHIN TWO HUNDRED LIGHT YEARS OF THE BUGGER FRONT ARE TO HAND OVER DIRECT CONTROL OF BATTLE OPERATIONS TO HQ WITHIN 24 HOURS. SHIPBOARD PERSONNEL TO BE TRAINED IN MONITORING AND REPAIR DUTY ONLY. MORE DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

- 0 − 0 -

The details were as follows:

The war was not to be fought by humans, but by machines.

During battle all instructions would be sent via ansible directly to the computers of each drone, each fighter, and each starship in the fleet, including the Polaris IV.

Humans would listen to the voices of the commanders at HQ to make sure the machines followed orders correctly. Humans would repair the machines if they broke down.

And that was the entire raison d'etre of Hikaru and his crew. Why they'd left their homes, their families, their lives, and flung themselves across the galaxy and out of time. To be the stones on the board, not the hands that held them.

The pointlessness all rang very familiar.

I am not a machine, not a Bugger! My name is Hong Suyong!

Hikaru was so angry he was almost numb with it. He stalked down to the docking bay, where his crew had converted one of the storage containers into a makeshift prison. It had light and air holes and a vacuum chamber pot, and not much else.

He unlocked the door and swung it open, ignoring the smell.

"You knew about this?" he demanded without preamble, flashing his desk screen at the only prisoner on the ship.

Hong didn't look up from where he was aimlessly drawing shapes on his own desk. "So they finally told you."

"You already knew. Why?"

Hong shrugged. "Mazer Rackham told me."

Hikaru grit his teeth. Do not show your displeasure to the enemy. They will use it against you, said Sai.

Screw that, thought Hikaru, heart pounding in anger. "Mazer Rackham, right, and the tooth fairy sends me messages on the ansible if I punch out some teeth for her."

"What's the tooth fairy?"

Hong was going to lose a tooth at this rate. "You'd think eight months in a box would make you less eager to stay in the box."

"You'd think, wouldn't you? If you could."

"Just tell me the truth."

"I already did."

"Hong, what the hell happened to you? You weren't like this at school. When I graduated from Battle School you were a toon leader. At Tactical you got better grades than I did."

"Everyone got better grades than you did."

"Why did they graduate you early? Why did they put you on my ship? They don't put two Battle School kids on one ship, that's a waste of resources, they need—"

But Hikaru stopped talking mid-sentence, comprehension descending on his head. The IF didn't need Battle School-trained tactical minds spread among the many units of the fleet. They just needed a few at HQ, to oversee everything. Among the ships of war all they needed was a bunch of grease monkeys to…hold the computers' hands.

"You get it now?" Hong laughed, a dry, horrible, laugh. "You see where all the students go after Battle School? Command, Navigation, Support—we used to agonize over our placements, but it doesn't really matter. Where does everyone disappear to after they graduate? The IF sends them off to war, but doesn't tell them they're nothing but cannon fodder until they're too far away to turn back."

Hikaru stepped away as if he'd been physically slapped. "This is…" he didn't know what he wanted to say. "This is crazy, this is…such a waste of resources," he finally settled on practical. He couldn't handle anything more. "Why would they spend all that money training us to be commanders—Battle School is on a space station, do you know how expensive that must be? Why bother?"

With his finger Hong drew a ladder-like shape on the ground. It reached high, high up in his imaginary sky. "We were science experiments, Captain Shindou." This was said with exhaustion, not sarcasm. "To create the true commander of the fleet, the one whose orders we'll be following, they needed to test out their school on us first. Make it better with each generation, more and more cruel, until one day, finally…"

The Hand of God.

"No," said Hikaru, not sure who he was talking to now. "You're just speculating, how can you know what the IF is thinking?"

Hong kept drawing his ladders in the sky. Hikaru hated the sight.

I still have not reached it…

"Why did they put you on my ship?" he hissed. "We barely even knew each other at school. Couldn't they have given you to Ko Yeongha—"

And finally Hong raised his eyes.

"I'm here," the boy said in an even voice that belied the rage in his expression, "because the IF knows you're a faithful, fully compliant, full-out psycho believer in their cause. You might feel a little sad right now, but you'll be fine as long as you can shoot some Buggers, ne? They made me your lieutenant 'cause they hoped you'd convert me to the cause. Too bad you failed—"

Hikaru slammed the door in Hong's face.

- 0 − 0 -

"Jakert," Hikaru said, voice clipped. "What did you think of that message from the IF?"

Jakert jerked upward from his observation of his console, as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. "Sir, I didn't mean to see it, honestly…"

"It doesn't matter. The rest of the crew will know soon. I just want…Hikaru's voice came out more vulnerable than he wanted, "I just want to hear your personal opinion."

"I don't know," said Jakert with more than his usual uncertainty, probably because he wasn't used to seeing his commander on the verge of a breakdown. "I guess it doesn't bother me that much. We're used to it, captain. Following orders, letting the machines do most of the work." He licked his lips. "I think this change, it's only going to affect you, to be honest."

- 0 − 0 -

"Another abandoned outpost." Nase made spooky whoo-ooo-ooooo noises through the comm. "Filled with nothing but Bugger junk and old ghosts. Haunted, I'm sure."

Hikaru shuddered. "HQ didn't say anything about the last one we blew up."

"So we gonna kill this one too?" she said, sounding way too keen.

"I thought we'd get chewed out for sure."

"So we gonna kill it?"

"…Let's study it," Hikaru said after a moment. "All battle operations, we gotta hand 'em over to the IF, right? But this no battle, we don't gotta behave, ne?"

"Eh." He could hear her grin through the comm.

Sometimes she really reminded him of an attack dog. Or Waya. Same thing really.

The thought that Waya was quite possibly dead flitted traitorously through Hikaru's head.

Sometimes you have to leave people behind, said Sai.

No, Hikaru thought. No no no.

"Actually, we're going to do this differently," he said, louder than necessary. "I'm going down there with the recon team. Into the outpost. Gonna suit up."

"…Wait, what?" Nase's bravado suddenly melted away. "I know we talk crazy, but I didn't think you were actually crazy."

"Just because I'm captain I can't?" He shrugged off his outer jacket with its bars of rank and turned off his computer display.

"It's the captain's job not to put himself at risk unnecessarily. We need you." Nase recited that old mantra as if the IF hadn't just turned it on its head with a few lines of ansible text. "You can't go down there, Shindou, you're just..."

Just a kid. Hikaru filled in the words she couldn't say. "If the IF isn't going to use us Battle School brats for what they trained us for, might as well make use of us some other way, ne?"

"Shindou, don't be stupid."

"I'm fifteen years old, Nase. If I'm not going to be stupid, who else will do it?"

"I almost went to Battle School too, you know," she said suddenly. "I had a monitor on my neck for two years. Then they took it off, told me I wasn't quite right for the program. Two years though, of waiting to hear whether I was good enough or not."

Hikaru wasn't surprised. She was certainly smart enough. "And?"

When her answer came, a few seconds later, he could hear how much she was holding back. "Shindou, if you don't come back, I swear I'll kill you myself."

"Don't swear, Lieutenant. It's unseemly. If I die and you become captain, you'll have to learn to be respectable."

He shut his comm off, not wanting to hear her reply.

- 0 − 0 -

"Are you sure, Captain?" Shiram, his head of recon, already had her hands on the exit hatch when she decided to pop the question. "This place could be riddled with traps."

Watch out for the lower left.

Right, right. Left left. Whatever that meant. "You'll be glad to have me along," Hikaru said breezily. "I have a sixth sense when it comes to finding traps."

"If you say so. All right, my little Buggers, let's move out."

Shiram swung the door open.

"Well, that's about the blasted wasteland I expected," said one of her recon crew, as they filed out of the lander onto the cracked grey-brown-black surface of the asteroid.

Even in their spacesuits they shivered. There was no sudden shock of freezing air, just the inevitable creep of cold into their bones. Quite a novelty after being on a spaceship for so long. Hikaru hadn't felt this much weather since…well, since his last day on earth.

Time to get moving.

"I'll take point," said Hikaru, and gave Shiram a quelling look. "Trust me, I'm faster with a gun than any of you."

"It's not live bugs I'm worried about," she grumbled, but fell back.

Walking in a wedge shape, Hikaru up front and three sharpshooters behind him, they slowly crossed the five hundred metres to the outpost. Their target wasn't remotely like any human-made structure; just looking at it made Hikaru queasy. If anything it was like an ant hill hewn out of rock. The shape was vaguely cone-like, although the long poles sticking out of the top ruined the geometry, and the craters on its surface turned out to be more than just pockmarks; the thing was riddled with holes. Bug holes. About half of them were covered with a dark blue plating that gleamed dully, vaguely chitinous.

That insectoid shine, he'd seen it before…on earth. He'd been with his family that day. The crash of ocean surf, the rocky grey beach dotted with inky blue-black shells—a torrent of memory hit him like a slap on the face. Somehow he could still see them, their sickly wet shine.

Those are mussels, his grandpa had said. They're food. His grandpa had smashed one open and showed him the beige-coloured flesh inside, told him laughingly to eat…

"Disgusting," said someone near the back of the line, breaking the code of silence. Hikaru didn't reprimand her.

Eventually they came to the outpost, chose the safest-looking hole, and climbed in, one by one.

- 0 − 0 -

"Lots of nothing here," Shiram murmured after about fifteen minutes of ducking their way through the tunnels. "My neck hurts."

Hikaru, grateful for once for being short, did not stop moving forward. He said, without looking backward, "Sensors aren't picking up anything?"

"Nada. This place was probably a communication tower at some point, judging by the huge needles sticking out of it, but it's not communicating anything anymore."

"Good," said Hikaru. He wasn't sure if he was actually happy or not.

"Should we leave?" Shiram's voice was edgy. "If there's anything here, it's all hidden away somewhere that would take ages to find."

watch out for the lower left

"Buggers don't put important things in the centre the way we do. I have a feeling we should keep going down. This way," said Hikaru. "Shine the light this way."

He could practically feel the dubious glances behind him.

"Fifteen more minutes and then we turn back," he promised them. "I just…think I feel a pattern."

"If you say so, Cap."

There was no human sense of rhythm to it, no organizing principle that made any sense. But somehow in those winding, worm-like tunnels, he could feel it. A shape. A conscious viewpoint. A sentient mind had sent the workers boring through the rock to some point far below, for reasons that eluded him, but he knew where to go. Maybe something about the outside shape of the outpost had clued him in. Maybe he just…knew it from playing enough Go.

watch out for the lower left

Hikaru stopped.

He stepped into the vast chamber in front of him. The tunnels had finally opened up. There was light here, a cold blue luminescence from above.

find me

A long, stone-grey pole extended from the distant ceiling all the way to the ground of the chamber. One of the needles they'd seen from outside no doubt. It slanted a few degrees to the right.

hikaru

The pole, at its bottom end, pierced the gleaming black head of a Bugger queen.

hikaru

Hikaru had never seen a Bugger queen before, never heard of one, but he knew that was what he was seeing.

hikaru

"Merde," someone whispered.

"What the hell is that?"

"It's huge, Buggers are supposed to be shorter than humans…"

"The wings…they're beautiful."

"Why would they…"

He took a step forward, then another.

hikaru

"Captain?"

"What are you doing? Stop! Stop him before—"

shindou hikaru

But it was too late for Hikaru; he reached out for the queen's hand, and as soon as he touched it finally realized the voice in his head wasn't Sai's at all.

- 0 − 0 -

Hikaru sits strapped into his chair. He is wearing a spacesuit for the first time in three years. He is weightless for the first time in three years. He has a goban to call his own for the first time in forever.

He can't move. The straps on his chair are too tight. But he feels peaceful. Again for the first time in forever.

Stars flit by silently outside the porthole, glowworms eating through the dark. This journey will be a long one. Hikaru's eyes drift closed.

Hikaru, he hears a voice call to him. Hikaru!

It's nice to hear his own name. No one calls him Hikaru anymore. He's not a child. He's Lieutenant Shindou, recently assigned to the galactic-class starship Polaris IV. He's on his way to play war. There is a goban locked away in his storage cupboard, also for playing war.

Hikaru, the voice says. Hikaru, please.

The sound seems to come from very far away. From a far away planet, a far away time.

Hikaru!

In the now, in his chair, Hikaru has forgotten the pull of the earth, the pull of time; he floats through space and between the stars, connecting all the points between. He is everywhere and everywhen at once, caught in a web of ansible lines stretching across the universe.

Hikaru, please, hear me!

He is moving very fast and not at all.

Now Hikaru is adrift in the Battle Room, cast loose among the stars of that boxed-in little world.

Now he is speeding toward the far end of the galaxy on a ship named for the North Star, waiting for the machines of war to begin their slow crawl into his fingers.

Now he is a small child seated before a game console, launching a terrible weapon into the heart of a planet, begging forgiveness of its queen.

Now he is standing among the ruins of an alien village on a planet far far away, long-forgotten wind and rain and sun pelting the fragile skin of his upturned face.

Now he is seated before a goban in a room made of tatami reeds, stones warm beneath his fingertips, a boy/a man/a ghost kneeling on the other side of the ancient kaya wood, waiting for him to make his move.

A windchime rings, beckoning. He leans an open umbrella against his shoulder, a thousand-year-old shelter against the rain. Above him a newborn yellow sun/a red star/a dying supernova pours fire upon his head. Beside him a ghost drifts gently by, a whispertouch of timeless eternity against his cheek.

Hikaru! says the ghost. Hikaru, let's play!

Hikaru opens his eyes.

Sai, he says. Sai. Are you here?

- 0 − 0 -

who is sai

says a voice

- 0 − 0 -

Hikaru woke up drowning.

"Easy," said a voice, "settle down, you're just in a nutrient bath, don't struggle. Shindou," the voice went sharp, and it was strange to be called Shindou again, not Hikaru, "you have to calm down now before you hurt yourself. Or I hurt you."

Hikaru took several shallow breaths of blue liquid, trying desperately not to hyperventilate. His throat hurt. His head hurt. A lot.

"Shindou, can you hear me?"

Hikaru turned mindlessly toward the voice, eyes wide.

"Shindou, blink twice if that's your name."

Hikaru blinked twice.

"Good," said Xun, the doctor/nutritionist/sometime psychologist of the Polaris IV. His voice was calm, soothing. Xun was skilled at speaking to crazies and making them less crazy. "You're not screaming anymore. Good. Your vitals are good too. I'm going to take you out of there." Moving away, he pressed a button. "Like a baby being born to the world," Xun said, deadpan, as the nutrient bath began to drain. "Easy. Here's some water. No? Want something to eat?"

Hikaru, remembering chitinous blue and soft quivering beige, adamantly shook his head No.

Xun shrugged and pressed his comm button. "Captain, can you get down to med-bay? Our patient is awake."

Hikaru belatedly realized that the word Captain didn't mean him.

Nase wasn't wearing extra bars of rank or anything, but she strode into medical bay with a sense of authority, brisk and businesslike. Facing her, Hikaru was glad he was in a bed now and not naked in a blue tank. There was only the faintest hint of apology in her eyes.

"You've been out of commission for almost six days, Shindou." She didn't bother saying hello. "I don't know what you were thinking, but you went and touched that giant Bugger corpse. Do you remember that much?"

Hikaru, still not trusting his voice, nodded.

"You remember screaming? You wouldn't stop until the recon team blasted the Bugger to bits. Do you remember?"

Hikaru shook his head.

"Tell me you have at least some idea what happened. The IF wants a report," Nase said evenly. "Did the Bugger talk to you? Was it really dead?"

"I don't know," Hikaru tried to say, but his throat was too dry. Now he knew why. Xun wordlessly handed him the glass of water again, and this time Hikaru took it, sucking down huge mouthfuls through the straw. "I don't know," he said hoarsely, once he could.

"Tell as much as you can," Nase persisted.

Hikaru closed his eyes, casting his mind back to those last moments on the asteroid. His head still hurt like hell, and somehow it felt…hollowed out, full with empty static. But that in itself was a clue.

"I had a lot of…flashbacks," he said to Nase, trying to properly describe the mess inside his brain and failing. "I saw a lot of random memories, all mixed together I think. Although…uh…" he tried not to stutter, remembering hot rain on his skin, like a pounding headache now more than anything, "I think there were some fake memories in there. Things I had never seen before. Like a planet I'd never been to, and…a sun blowing up, maybe."

Nase exchanged a glance with Xun. "Did it seem like the Bugger was talking with you?"

That question again. Hikaru forced himself to relive his moment of contact with the Bugger, her shining hard-shelled hand in his, the cold smoke-blue air stealing away his breath. And in his mind…

"It's hard for me to say, but I feel like something maybe was…in my head," he said, and his brain throbbed appropriately. "I didn't realize it at first, but at the end there, I think I did."

He didn't say he was used to having voices in his head, and that's why he didn't notice this one.

Xun, lips pursed, was writing notes on his desk. Nase, frowning, fingered the hem of her lieutenant's jacket. Then she seemed to make up her mind about something. "I know you're still recovering, but you need to know this, because it might be important. For the war. After you passed out, the Buggers started moving forward more aggressively. Before this, they were content to monitor our progress."

Hikaru held himself completely still. Suddenly his headache was the least of his worries.

"It might have nothing to do with you. We can't possibly know. We ran lots of tests on you and we didn't find anything. But who knows. We don't understand Bugger communication at all. Hell, we don't even understand the ansible."

"But you're saying it might be my fault—"

"We don't know," she said firmly, "and maybe it doesn't matter. By the time a research team gets to the outpost, or here to study you, the war will be long over. It's all classified anyway. What matters is that we act. The IF is fast-forwarding the timetable for the Third Invasion. We're needed at the front sooner than we thought. So I," she looked him in the eye, "have taken de facto command. And I'm not giving it back."

"I understand," said Hikaru woodenly, still shocked by the revelation that he was even stupider than he thought. "You were practically running the place anyway."

"There's more." Nase let out a humourless laugh. "Technically, the IF has put Hong Suyong in charge, not me. We never did report his little rebellion, remember? And considering how much trouble you're already in, I'd rather not give them any more reason to court martial you. I already have to report that the Buggers might have somehow pried confidential info out of your head."

Hikaru felt slightly more wretched than he already had. "Nase, I'm sorry."

She sighed, deflating a little. "Fortunately, Hong has been playing his part willingly, with some bribery. We've let him out of jail."

"Really," said Xun drily. "Are you sure that's a good idea? Who's going to babysit him."

"The other baby, maybe."

"Hm? Oh, you mean this one."

"Shindou, you up for duty?" She gave an almost genuine grin, wide and wolf-like. Hikaru remembered another smile like that, Waya, and suddenly got hit by a flare-up of memory again, the stars of that boxed-in little world and he put his head in his hands, pain knifing through the nerves behind his eyes.

Shit. Of all the things to finish him off, it wasn't all that talk about the Buggers coming to kill them, it was stupid, pointless Battle School flashbacks.

"Hey, Shindou, are you okay?" Nase sounded a bit less Waya-like now, and that was good. "I'll let you rest…Shindou, sorry for suddenly dumping all this on you, and taking your job, but…" Isumi-san's graduating soon. I'll be captain if it kills me, Shindou. Or you. Remember? "Xun, take care of him."

Something warm was injected into his neck, and Hikaru quickly decided it was a good time to sleep. It wasn't like he was needed anyway. He was just a useless Battle School kid, an outdated model easily replaced, worse than useless, maybe he'd already gotten them all killed…

It occurred to him, as he drifted off, that he hadn't heard Sai's voice since waking.

- 0 − 0 -

who is sai

is sai everywhere and everywhen

- 0 − 0 -

"You look like kuso."

Hearing that voice, and the Battle School slang, Hikaru's migraine flared up insistently; Hong Suyong was the last person he wanted to see right now.

So Hikaru closed his eyes.

"Are you here to gloat over your 'promotion'?" he said, head still lowered, massaging his temples with his thumbs. "Congrats, you're now head figurehead on this ship, best overall Tactical School dropout, rah rah rah."

"Xun asked me to see if I could help fix your broken mind somehow," Hong sounded doubtful of the possibility, "but I think what you need is hard drugs."

"Don't want 'em." Hikaru took several deep breaths through his nose. "If that's all you can do, maybe you should go. Talking about it doesn't help."

"Yeah, that's why I brought you this."

Hikaru felt something hard and square float into his lap. He grabbed it before it flew away. "My desk? You broke into into my room?"

"Captain's privileges." There was a pause before Hong continued. "I saw something else there. Something not very standard issue. You got it from Touya Akira?"

Take this with you. Please, Shindou.

The pain stabbed through his mind, sword-like. Hikaru dipped his head and clenched his eyes, unable to answer. Sai's Go had been like a sword too, once upon a time…

"I'll leave you alone," Hong said, unusually subdued. "When you feel better, try playing a game on the desk. Most of them are terrible, but when I was in…incarcerated, I found something interesting on there called the Fantasy Game. It might help."

"That's a lame name."

"Some people call it the Mind Game."

"I already play mind games every day."

"Yeah, there's nothing else to do on this boat." Hong made some shuffling noises, probably ready to make his escape. "Just…try it. It's the only thing I could think of for you."

"Thanks?" Hikaru tried to speak through his migraine. He wasn't used to Hong being nice. He supposed being an invalid had at least one perk. "That's a weird suggestion, playing a video game to get rid of a headache, but I'll try it."

Hikaru wasn't sure he would, but he at least needed to pretend. Mind games and all that.

Hong was silent for several long seconds, because probably he'd heard the lie in Hikaru's voice.

"It's not an ordinary game," he finally said. "And you, of all people, should know that games aren't ordinary things."

At that, Hikaru finally looked up, a scowl on his face, only in time to see Hong shut the hatch firmly behind him.

- 0 − 0 -

who is sai

is sai everywhere and everywhen

is sai nowhere

- 0 − 0 -

"All personnel should now be at their battle stations," Nase's voice was composed and captain-like over the ship-wide comm. "We'll be given our marching orders soon. Our commander's name is Fly Molo."

"Fly Molo?" Xun grimaced, though whether at the offending name or Hikaru's brain scan results, it was hard to tell. "Did you have a dumb nickname too when you were in school?"

Hikaru had his hands folded peaceably atop his stomach, his head not throbbing for once. Maybe it was the familiarity of battle. Maybe it was the brain scan.

"I'll be switching the comm over to Commander Molo now," Nase went on. "Remember, our job is to make sure the computer follows his orders. Override commands will be logged. Lieutenant Nase out."

She sounded a touch regretful.

A few minutes later, an unfamiliar voice sounded over the comm. It was a very young voice. "Deploying fighters A through D. The rest on standby. I'm sending them to 39.10.49. Drones on standby. Hey, Ender bender, we gonna bust a fender…"

The chatter continued, sometimes cracking pubescently on the high notes.

"Good lord," said Xun. "No wonder they put you and Hong in charge. They wanted to get us used to it."

"Yeah," said Hikaru. He and Xun held themselves still as the ship vibrated ominously. He imagined all those fighters draining from the belly of the Polaris IV, each of them manned by helpless, mannequin-like humans, like a mother throwing her babes to the wolves.

"Guess I'll prepare the rest of the beds," Xun grumbled, starting to move away. "You might have company in here soon."

"You're optimistic."

"Sure am. In space, it's lucky if you recover any injured at all."

Hikaru settled further into his bed. It was almost nostalgic, this exhaustion, this dejection. Like coming back from a loss in the Battle Room. But someone else was doing the fighting for him now, so it was more relaxing. He couldn't even lose for himself now. He couldn't even hear Sai's voice speak to him anymore…

He longed, suddenly, for the goban in his room. He wondered what it would be like to play a game on it here in zero grav, how stupid it would be, if he would have to chase the stones through the air when he and Touya played—if only Touya were here.

I'm giving this to you because I have to believe we'll meet again.

Hikaru waited for the migraine to hit, because right then it would have been a relief, but like a bastard it didn't.

He was breathing hard anyway. The ship lurched downward, and his stomach leapt into his throat. It was almost thrilling. It was just like stepping into the Battle Room for the first time.

"Fighters, dive into cone formation, go now!" Fly Molo's voice said. "Remember, Dragon Army, the enemy's gate is down!"

Hikaru couldn't stand it.

He wanted to play.

And he didn't want to play.

He couldn't play without Sai's voice—

People were screaming something outside the med bay. Xun looked up, face grim, but the door didn't open.

"Fire the Little Doctor in three…two..one!" Molo sounded delighted at his own order.

Hikaru decided resolutely not to think. He needed something mindless. He needed…games. He needed his desk.

"Whoo, look at those Buggers fry! Seafood for dinner!"

He found it and turned it on.

- 0 − 0 -

Battle was happening again. It didn't concern Hikaru. He was good at tuning out the commander's voice on the comm now. It was easy. The commander was always someone different; they all had weird names. Once it had been a girl.

"Our commander today is named Crazy Tom," said Nase through the comm. "Listen to him well."

"Seriously, Crazy Tom?" said Xun.

Not caring, Hikaru flicked through the silly, easy games available to him. He'd played a lot of them, but there were hundreds more.

"I need to go pee," Crazy Tom announced.

There was a Go game, but Hikaru didn't play it. It would probably make his head hurt. His headaches still came and went, but they weren't so bad now. He could probably leave the med bay, but he didn't.

What to do, what to play, how to kill time with himself today?

He stopped the auto-scroll when he got to the letter "F." Hadn't Hong mentioned something called the Fantasy Game? Sure, Hikaru had given him a hard time about it, but that was when Hikaru had the energy to give anyone a hard time.

He was vaguely aware of Xun watching him, a furrow between his brows. But Xun was probably just bored too. So far, no one else had come in for real treatment aside from some light bruising and burns and a bit of psychological trauma. Xun was right; being hit by a Bugger weapon meant death, not injury. Esteban the head of Supply was dead, and Shiram and half her team were missing…

Hikaru spoke the command to turn on the Fantasy Game.

The first thing he saw was this:

MESSAGE FOR SHINDOU HIKARU FROM HIS FAAAAAAVOURITE EX-TOOOOON LEADER. IF YOU ARE SHINDOU SAY HI WAYA. IF YOU ARE NOT HIM WHY ARE YOU USING HIS LOGIN.

It was like being hit by a Bugger migraine. Or by a light gun in the Battle Room. He couldn't hear or see anything around him except the message marching across his desk. Hikaru remained frozen for so long the game asked him if he was still there. Twice.

Finally, voice shaking, Hikaru said, "Hi, Waya."

The screen blipped and a new message came on.

HI SHINDOU. BET YOU'RE SURPRISED TO HEAR FROM ME. I'M TYPING THIS SUPER FAST SO I CAN UPLOAD IT ONTO YOUR SHIP BEFORE YOU LAUNCH IN LIKE AN HOUR SO I APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE INCOHERENCY OF MY LAST-MINUTE-PROBABLY-NOT-GONNA-GET-TO-YOU MESSAGE.

UNFORTUNATELY ISUMI-SAN ISN'T AROUND RIGHT NOW BUT HE'S NOT FAR AWAY. WE'RE BOTH PLAY TESTERS/JUNIOR PROGRAMMERS ON THE FANTASY GAME YOU ARE ABOUT TO PLAY. THAT'S KIND OF CONFIDENTIAL INFO BUT OH WELL THAT'S WHY I'M HIDING THIS IN THE CODE OF A VIDEO GAME.

NOW THAT I'M TYPING I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY. REALLY WISH ISUMI-SAN WERE HERE. HE'S NOT RESPONDING TO MY MESSAGES, PROBABLY OUT PLAYING GO SOMEWHERE.

YEAH, ISUMI-SAN LEARNED HOW TO PLAY GO. GOT ME PLAYING TOO. HOPE THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. I KEEP LOSING TO THIS FREAK CHINESE KID WHO LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE ME BUT SMALLER AND UGLIER. HE IS ISUMI-SAN'S NEW BEST FRIEND. I AM NOT BITTER ABOUT ALWAYS LOSING TO THIS FREAK CHINESE KID BECAUSE I CAN BEAT HIM (UP) IN OTHER WAYS.

ANOTHER THING THAT WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY: WE MADE SURE THE AI OF THE FANTASY GAME YOU ARE ABOUT TO PLAY PLAYS A MEAN GAME OF GO. BELIEVE IT OR NOT OUR BOSSMAN IS A HUGE UBERNERD DWEEBZOID FAN OF TOUYA KOUYO. (WILL I NEVER ESCAPE TOUYA AKIRA'S HUGE GODDAMN SHADOW I ASK RHETORICALLY.) BOSSMAN IS ALWAYS GOING ON AND ON ABOUT SOME NETGO GAME TOUYA KOUYO PLAYED THIS ONE TIME WITH SOME ANONYMOUSE UBERLEET PLAYER NAMED SAI. BOSSMAN KEEPS SAYING HE'S GONNA PROGRAM THE GHOST OF THAT GAME INTO THIS GAME WHATEVER THAT MEANS. BLAH BLAH HAND OF GOD BLAH ISUMI-SAN SAYS YOU'D PROBABLY UNDERSTAND.

(YEAH I REMEMBER THE NAME YOU USED TO SAY IN YOUR SLEEP BUT I DON'T TELL OUR BOSSMAN BECAUSE HE WOULD FORCE YOU TO WORK FOR HIM AND I KNOW YOU WANT TO GO KILL BUGGERS AND ANYWAY YOU SUCK WITH COMPUTERS)

WE MISS YOU, YOU BIG DWEEB. IT'S ALMOST LIKE YOU'RE HERE, THE WAY WE KEEP HAVING TO PROGRAM GO BULLSHIT INTO THIS GAME. BTW WE WORKED SUPER HARD ON IT SO YOU DAMN WELL BETTER TRY IT OUT, BUT I GUESS YOU'RE HERE SO YOU WILL. BTW THE GAME'S STILL BETA 1.2, FULL OF BUGGER BUGS, SORRY IF IT SCREWS UP ON YOU.

MAN THIS LETTER SUCKS. WISH I COULD SAY SOMETHING MORE HEARTWRENCHING AND TEARJERKING BUT YOU KNOW ME. MORE JERK THAN TEARJERKER.

SHINDOU I DO REALLY HOPE YOU SAVE THE WORLD FOR MORE THAN THE OBVIOUS REASONS. WE'RE STUCK HERE SO YOU DO IT FOR US.

GO KILL EM TIGER (ARMY).

NO LOVE AND KISSES,

WAYA (AND ISUMI-SAN IN ABSENTIA)

"Ah," Hikaru gasped. His eyes squeezed shut. Stupid animal-like pain noises escaped from his throat.

Waya was dead, Isumi was dead. Long ago dead. He'd already suspected, but now he knew. He never got to say goodbye. He always regretted not saying goodbye. But here was Waya saying goodbye to him.

Somehow the grief sharpened the happiness. Here was Waya's voice, speaking to him from a hundred years ago, and behind all that bravado lurked Isumi's gentle presence, and Hikaru was so, so glad to see that Battle School hadn't killed their friendship after all. Somehow they'd managed to come together again, to make a game of all things, and oh, they were playing Go, they'd put their Go into it, and Waya had mentioned a game Touya Kouyo played once…it had to be that game, that stupid game. The one that sent Hikaru to Battle School. The one he couldn't tell anyone about.

This isn't goodbye, he'd told Touya, but it was hard to believe that now.

Hikaru began to cry, letting loose the big ugly sobs he'd been holding in since eight months, four days, and twelve minutes after the start of this journey. His parents were dead. His grandparents too of course. Akari. Touya Kouyo. Waya and Isumi. His army. Esteban in engineering and probably Shiram and Ahmed and Koris who'd gone onto that asteroid with him. All of them were gone. Even Sai's voice was gone. Sai was…

Sai's hand was all over that letter.

Hikaru blinked hard and re-read. Through his blurry, crummy, tear-salted vision, he saw it. He saw it in how many times Waya offhandedly implored him to play Go in this Fantasy Game. He saw it in the all the Go Waya and Isumi and their friends must have played. He saw it in the longing of Touyo Kouyo for a game long dead.

Hikaru wiped at his nose with his arm, trailing snot everywhere. He was disgusting. His stupid brain was disgusting. Sai was gone, wasn't he? Just an echo in his head now, a voice even Hikaru never heard.

Where did you go, Sai? Hikaru asked the empty air. Where did your voice go?

He looked around dumbly, and saw only his own tears, hapless globules of liquid misery floating around his head. He couldn't stand it. He looked back down at his desk.

If I play this game, he asked the void in his mind, will I find you there?

If I fly to the ends of the universe, will I find you there?

YES, said Waya.

Yes, said Touya.

yes hikaru, said someone else.

It was too much to ask. He was getting his hopes up too high.

It was stupid to keep believing.

Hikaru pressed the button to start the game.

- 0 − 0 -

"Shindou," said Xun, using his gentle psychologist's voice. "Shindou, are you all right? You've been playing that game for a long time."

Hikaru blinked, and the spell was broken.

He realized he was crying.

He looked up at his doctor.

"Have you played this before?" he whispered, not caring if he sounded childish.

Xun leaned forward and took the desk from Hikaru, who let it go reluctantly.

"I haven't, but I've seen others play it. They like to tell me about it. It makes them feel better, they say."

"What do they see, when they play the game?"

It took a moment for Xun to answer. "Different things. A playground, children who turn into wolves, a giant, sometimes a talking bat who says annoying stuff." He gave Hikaru a curious look. "Why? What did you see?"

- 0 − 0 -

who is sai

is sai everywhere and everywhen

is sai nowhere

shindou hikaru

is sai with you

- 0 − 0 -

"Captain."

Of course Nase was too busy, now that she was commanding a fighting vessel, to be talking to a lowly invalid haunting the hallways, but she stopped, turned to look at him, and the smile on her face was genuine. "Welcome back to the world of the living, such as it is."

"I want to pilot a fighter," Hikaru told her.

The smile stayed. She put a hand on his shoulder. "No." Then she started floating purposefully away.

"The headaches are gone!" he yelled at her back.

"Liar!" But he could hear the grin in her voice. He could picture the wolf smile flashing across her face. "I'm glad you're feeling well enough to bother me, but your job is to babysit Hong, remember?"

That joke was still on? "Since when does a captain need babysitting?"

"Since we started fighting live Buggers instead of dead ones! Make him useful to me, and maybe I'll let you be useful too."

After that she was out of yelling distance.

- 0 − 0 -

"Well, I'm here."

Hikaru looked up, half surprised his summons had actually been answered.

"Your room is cramped," Hong said, crossing his arms almost petulantly, like a kid—he and Hikaru had been regressing, these past two weeks of real war, into the children they were supposed to be. "I don't know why you wanted to meet here."

Hikaru reached under his bed, unstrapped Touya Kouyo's goban from the frame, and brought it up to sit on his lap. "I hid it better. Wouldn't want you to steal it."

Hong stared for a moment, then pushed himself toward the door.

Hikaru quickly told the door to shut itself.

"So I'm a prisoner again?" Hong sounded bitter.

"I don't think you ever stopped being one. Tell me why the IF put you on my ship."

"Your ship." Hong said it still facing the closed door. "And here I thought you were becoming a less aggravating person."

"I'm still the same me." Hikaru felt a little pang in his heart, an empty echo in his mind. He really wasn't the same at all. "I'll ask you what I asked before: what the hell happened to you? How did you know about the IF's plans?"

"I told you. Mazer Rackham."

Hikaru regarded that straight, proud back steadily. "He's still alive," he said after a moment. "I should have believed you. I mean, I knew I was still alive and everyone on earth I loved…dead." He paused, but Hong didn't speak. "But I think I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to feel sorry for Mazer Rackham. The IF have been preserving him the way they've been preserving us?"

When Hong finally turned around, there was a look of relief on his face so powerful it was almost embarrassing.

"No one was supposed to see him; it was an accident. An unlucky one." Hong said. "I ran into him when he came to inspect Tactical School. In the right place at the right time to meet a hero, I guess."

Hikaru nodded. He wouldn't interrupt. Clearly Hong had wanted to tell this story for a very long time.

"Rackham told me about the invasion plan. He shouldn't have. That was an accident too. He seemed so tired, a little crazy maybe from the isolation. The IF found out and had to shut me up. Couldn't let a kid go blabbing about how defenseless the earth was. Is."

When he didn't go on, Hikaru said, "They graduated you early and put you on this ship. Not Ko Yeongha's."

Hong's eyes drifted to the side. "I forgave Rackham eventually."

"For ruining your career?"

"For being an ordinary person."

"Like us."

At that, Hong seemed to deflate, his straight back unstraightening, a breath long held flowing out of him like a gust of earthly wind. "Like us," he said.

Hikaru opened his mouth to say more, to ask Hong if he played Go, if he called it Go or Baduk, if he'd played with Ko Yeongha in secret all those years in school, why had he never said anything, and did he want to play now—but Hikaru already knew the answers to all those questions, because Hong was looking at Touya Kouyo's goban with eyes that were hungry to play, to hold the stones himself, so full of longing for

a goban in a room made of tatami reeds, stones warm beneath his fingertips, a boy/a man/a ghost kneeling on the other side of the ancient kaya wood, waiting for him to make his move

but the question Hikaru ended up asking was, "When you play the Fantasy Game, what do you see?"

Hong's gaze flickered upward, away from the goban, and met Hikaru's eyes in a gesture of recognition.

Then the comm noisily crackled to life, startling them both.

"Today it's our girl Petra again." Nase's voice sounded cheerful, even if it was a bit forced. She'd started sounding like that after the first death of a crew member. "We have only twenty minutes to get to battle stations. Let's make our commander proud."

Hikaru met Hong's eyes again.

"Captain," he said, "can you put me on a fighter?"

- 0 − 0 -

"Shindou!" Nase sounded frantic. "Shindou, what are you doing?" She pounded hard on the plastiglass of his fighter's forward window with her fist, thud thud thud—a useless gesture—but then she threw herself bodily in front of the hovering ship and its accompanying drones, and Hikaru had to hastily tell the computer to abort to avoid bowling her over.

The ship and drones silently settled back onto the ground.

"Computer, open the hatch," she shouted, "override authority of Lieutenant Nase!"

But the ship didn't open. The captain's code had already been entered.

Face pale, Nase spun around and pointed her gun at Hong, who was standing off to the side of the docking bay rather impassively; a red sightline dot appeared on his forehead. "Open it."

He didn't raise his hands up in surrender. But he didn't have a gun at his side either.

"If you let him go," she said, "you're truly a traitor after all. The IF needs him."

"That's why he has to go."

"They'll arrest you."

"I'm already a prisoner."

"Hong," said Hikaru through his comm. "You need to go too."

Hong wasn't going anywhere. "They'll vivisect him, Nase. But first they'll run every kind of invasive test they can think of. Do you want that?"

She was breathing very hard. "If it helps us win."

"Even if they find something in his head, it'll be too late for this war. They don't care, don't you see? If they really thought he might be useful, they would've sent for him already. They only care enough to hurt him after it's all done, to punish him."

The dot on Hong's forehead wavered.

Time to push the advantage. To win, Hikaru would use every weapon he had. "Nase, please," he pleaded. "I can be of some use here. You don't have many pilots left, do you?"

She didn't turn to look at him, but her voice came out low and more tired than he'd expected. "You know, Shindou, maybe I don't want to see another friend die while I sit and watch on my screen."

"Maybe I'll save some of our friends from dying."

"You won't even get to control that ship. You know that."

"Better to die like this than the other way. I don't want to be cut open." He let his fear show in his voice; he wasn't above that. "I need to make up for what I've done, even just a little. Let me go."

The gun lowered a few inches. But Nase's eyes were still hard.

"It's on your head, Captain," she said to Hong, holstering her weapon.

Hong nodded heavily, relief palpable on his face. "Thank you."

Leaning her head back, as if asking for guidance from heaven, she said, "Damn right you better be thankful."

"We'll make our commander proud," said Hikaru softly, and he didn't mean Petra, or Ender even. He hoped she heard through the comm.

But she stepped away, shaking her head. "You two are crazy," she said. "I still can't believe kids younger than you are in charge of the whole invasion. Or maybe," she finally looked up at Hikaru, faced him through the barrier between them, "I understand completely."

"We play games real good, ne?" he answered her, trying not to let any regret creep into his voice. Meeting her steady gaze, he gave her one of his old shit-eating grins, managed to keep it up even when her return smile was a little sad. "Us Battle School brats, we shoot things up go boom."

"I know," she said, still sad. "It's what you were made for."

She saluted him one last time, then left to attend to the rest of her crew.

- 0 − 0 -

"Hong," said Hikaru into his comm, while he was still in range. "You have to go too."

It was probably too late. Lined up to the left of him were four other fighters, each housing a brave, foolish pilot. He could only see the face of Jakert, his immediate neighbour; the young man looked terrified. The space hatch was unfolding before him, white panels sliding neatly into themselves.

They weren't supposed to use their comms; they had to listen for commands over the ansible. But Hikaru, feeling yose closing in, couldn't leave without one last word to Hong: who was his captain, his former prisoner, former lieutenant, former schoolmate, fellow survivor.

They'd known each other for a big part of their lives, now that he thought about it.

"Hong," he said again, voice less urgent. "I'm sorry for…" How did one apologize for locking a person up for eight months? "I'm sorry we didn't get to play a game. Of Go, I mean. If I don't make it back, I want you to have—"

"Let's nigiri."

"You want to play now?" Hikaru said incredulously.

"Why not?"

Of its own volition, Hikaru's fighter silently lifted off the ground. The four ships to the left of him did the same.

"Whatever, I'll take black," said Hong. "5-4."

"And I thought I was a nut," Hikaru said breathlessly to Hong. "5-5."

As one, the fighters inched forward through the air.

"Are you kidding?" said Hong. "You're top nut. I'm taking the opposite 5-5."

Hikaru couldn't help the stupid smile that spread across his face, even as his fighter cleared the exit gate of the Polaris IV.

This was probably going to be the last game of Go he'd ever play, so he'd make it a good, crazy one. He spoke his next move into the comm, hoping he was heard.

A moment later, he leapt into hyperspace.

- 0 − 0 -

"I need a ship with a Little Doctor," Petra mumbled over the ansible. "Just one. At, um, over there, at 326.15.20. No, not 20, make it…37. Sorry."

Her voice dripped exhaustion. Hikaru couldn't help but feel sorry for her and the rest of the commanders, even though her order just now was probably going to kill him. It was his fighter that broke away from the squadron to head straight for the heart of the Bugger vanguard.

Good thing he'd played the tengen point.

- 0 − 0 -

He'd never expected the Bugger ships to be so beautiful.

They shone like tiny grey-blue stars, held together in luminous fractal shapes, ever-shifting in patterns of alien thought.

He wasn't scared, somehow. It was all too strangely familiar to be scary.

He blinked, and another game was there behind his eyelids—

a life and death problem, black and white on a goban on a verandah on a vid screen in a void space in a memory, once here and there and then gone

"Moving Little Doctor forward from 326.15.27," Petra mumbled.

Hikaru's ship moved forward.

He forced himself to clasp his hands together, to keep them from going anywhere near the override controls. A prayer pose, he realized. He unclasped his hands.

On his monitoring screen, he could see his drone ships faithfully swarming around him. They moved in Bugger-like patterns, darting randomly, ready to send out cover fire as soon as the enemy got too close. So fast, so insect-like. Like this, with the machines in control, he could compete with the speed of the enemy.

Remember, Touya, how I said I'd fire the shot to end the war? Well, maybe I still can. But it will be my commander's hand that plays my winning move—my very own Hand of God, this broken young girl who doesn't even know I exist—and her hand guided by another, by a boy whose voice I've never even heard.

But, he realized, it had always been that way, hadn't it? Ever since Hikaru started learning Go, he'd been part of this: one hand invisibly guiding another, reaching for a distant future he'd only ever glimpsed once, in a game—

"Go," Petra said, voice cracking, "right here," she must have pressed something on her computer because his ship suddenly leapt forward, "you need to capture the upper right star," and then he was amidst the swarm.

It was beautiful here, too.

Right away three of his drones popped like flies. His ship zig-zagged wildly, probably an automatic flight pattern to throw the enemy off, and it was working, he was still alive, but dizzy as hell. On a hard turn his right temple crashed against a bulkhead. Good thing he put a helmet on. Good thing he had the drones, which were doing their job, they just needed to protect him, or rather the Little Doctor, because that was the whole point, if he lost his weapon he'd be pointless—

Funny, he remembered throwing his weapon away once, in a battle at Battle School. Had he won that one?

Funny, he hadn't heard Petra in a while. But he couldn't think about that, he was almost there, the upper right formation, closer, just a bit closer to that cluster of ships and debris, where his Little Doctor could start a chain reaction…

hikaru

you're very close

There. He was in range. It was time to fire.

hikaru

But why was he still moving forward? Why wasn't he firing? At this rate he wasn't just going to be shot, he was going to collide with the enemy.

What was Petra doing?

Where was her voice?

Where was Sai's voice?

hikaru

shindou hikaru

can you hear my voice

Something wasn't right.

Hikaru flipped open the override panel, input the captain's code, the one he'd seen Hong use, and pulled on the red lever to take control. But at the same time his computer blared a warning, and before he could even acknowledge it his body was thrown forward like a rag doll against his seat restraints, knocking all the air from his abdomen in a brutal instant. His mouth fell open with pain, eyes bulging. Starboard and stern engines were gone, the computer told him urgently. More data forthcoming.

The ship was still careening from the impact, the g-forces like a twisting wrench to his head. The computer screamed that navigation was down, targeting was down, the ansible was down, life support was failing.

Gasping, using up far too much of his precious remaining oxygen, Hikaru reached out for the controls and blindly fired.

For a moment, nothing. He couldn't see anything from here. He couldn't hear anything either. He was in space.

Then—

The chain of destruction was too close. It was terrifyingly close. He thought he could feel heat on his face, but that was impossible, it was his imagination fooling him, but this was all beyond protocol, what the hell had happened to Petra—

On his cracked display screen (sensors were still working?), enemy ships started winking out. Outside his window (he could see it from the corner of his eye) all those impossibly beautiful points of blue-grey were one by one turning hot white, too bright, painful to look at like a newborn yellow sun/a red star/a dying supernova pouring fire upon his head, and then each of those brilliant starpoints were disappearing into black, empty spots of nothing against the speckled backdrop of space, a long terrifying moment of spreading void, and then, after that…

After that even the void was gone, and the vast sphere of stars returned to him, as if nothing could ever change them in the long history of the universe.

Hikaru's stomach roiled. His computer was flashing more warnings—all of his drones were dead. All of the Bugger ships in a ten-kilometre radius were dead. Plenty more were coming toward him. He was going to die.

hikaru

listen to me

to my voice

hikaru

His gorge was rising. He was going to throw up. He had killed so many. They were going to kill him.

The bubble of nausea shot up his throat, threatened to spill out from his mouth. He put a hand over his face and shuddered, forcing himself to swallow the feeling back down. But in the process he gulped down huge mouthfuls of oxygen, forced out long breaths of poisonous carbon dioxide into his tiny pocket of livable air. The computer told him so.

He didn't want to die. Despite everything, he didn't want to die.

He rammed his finger on the comm button, hoping at least this one thing was still working. "My ansible is dead. What happened to Petra? Do we have orders? Anyone?" He needed to hear someone else's voice. Someone who wasn't a computer. The silence was horrendous.

hikaru

listen to me

hikaru

No response.

"Life support failure in sixty seconds," announced his computer. "Self-destruct sequence initiated."

Self-destruct?

His hand fell away from the comm. He wanted to laugh. Of course. He'd been told his main job here was to repair the Dr. Device if it got damaged—but his other, unspoken responsibility was to destroy it if there was any chance it could fall into Bugger hands.

He wondered if he'd missed the suicide part of training while he'd been stuck in med bay.

"Sixty seconds," the computer warned him. "Fifty-nine, fifty-eight…"

hikaru

you have to live

hikaru

So this was what despair felt like. All paths to life cut off from him. He was off the ansible map. His comm was dead. The glowing dot at HQ that proclaimed his existence must have blinked out. He was a ghost. He didn't exist. Just like Sai—

But with that thought, the panic fell away.

Of course Hikaru existed. Of course Sai was real. The proof of it was here, in him. Even if no one could see him, he existed.

Hikaru wouldn't be here, if Sai hadn't guided his hand.

Forty seconds left according to the computer display. A familiar emptiness filled him, the calm of a breaking storm, the silence of a darkened room. Here was a game to play, a life or death problem waiting to be solved. Thirty-five seconds. He unbuckled himself from the padded safety of his chair, strapped on his fuel and oxygen tank, pressed the button to seal tight his helmet and space suit. Thirty seconds. He opened the hatch, the one and only path to life. Twenty-five. Take it and live, miss it and die.

come here

to me

hikaru

to me

Hikaru took it.

- 0 − 0 -

Somehow, he was still alive.

Through the clear plastiglass of his helmet, he could see the loose collection of dirt that had been his ship. That could have been him too, he knew. He was only alive because the Little Doctor had imploded inwards, not outwards.

He shivered. White spots still danced across his vision. Disintegrated bits of his ship flew past his helmet like a sandstorm. He limbs felt numb. He had nothing to hold onto. He was cast adrift, alone in the vast emptiness of space.

Hikaru has forgotten the pull of the earth, the pull of time; he floats through space and between the stars, connecting all the points between.

Only fifteen minutes of air in his tank. Hardly any jet fuel either. The IF equipped its fighter pilots for quick repairs while tethered to the ship, not for long flights through empty space. He had to choose his destination and head straight for it. No wrong moves, no extraneous hands.

He is everywhere and everywhen at once, caught in a web of ansible lines stretching across the universe.

He twisted his body toward the closest squadron of Bugger ships, the muscles he'd trained in Battle School straining against their long disuse.

Now Hikaru is adrift in the Battle Room, cast loose among the stars of that boxed-in little world.

He turned on his jets for a brief moment then shut them off, letting momentum carry him slowly forward. He hoped he'd calculated correctly. He hoped he wouldn't be shot on sight.

Now he is a small child seated before a game console, launching a terrible weapon into the heart of a planet, begging forgiveness of its queen.

One minute of flying later and he wasn't dead, though surely the Buggers must have noticed him by now. They weren't moving, just watching him. Only five hundred metres to go now. What would he do when he got there?

Now he is standing among the ruins of an alien village on a planet far far away, long-forgotten wind and rain and sun pelting the fragile skin of his upturned face.

He felt very strange as he closed in on the lead ship. Peaceful. The ship was shaped like a pinched egg, so alien it wasn't even worth worrying about. The deep chitinous blue of it was almost comforting against the starkness of space. He used his jets to slow his approach, touching down gently on the front of the ship and turning on his magnetic boots right away. He was pleased when they worked.

There was no obvious doorway or window on the glossy exterior o the ship, but he was not surprised when a long jagged opening appeared down the length of it, like an egg cracking from the inside, or a mussel shell peering open.

What was inside it?

As the crack widened the Bugger pilot was revealed: a being smaller than him, insectoid joints thin and vulnerable-looking, large eyes multi-faceted and luminescent. A thin film of clear, mucous-like material protected her. Long antennae bobbed inquisitively above her shiny black head. "Hi," he said, though he knew his voice would not carry. "I feel like we kind of know each other, despite this being our first meeting."

A voice rang in his head in reply—a familiar voice, though strange. "It's you," he said awkwardly.

welcome hikaru, she said without saying anything, straight into his mind, stay here, and Hikaru realized she had been speaking to him for a long time, if only he'd had ears to hear.

Beside him a ghost drifts gently by, a whispertouch of timeless eternity against his cheek.

"I don't have much time," he kept his voice quiet, because his air was starting to run out, "but thank you for letting me come here. Thank you for…talking to me, I guess. It gave me a lot of headaches, and at first I thought you were just trying to…steal information, to hurt me and my race, but then you showed me…in the Fantasy Game…you showed me something. Something I really wanted."

Hikaru! Hikaru, let's play!

"We've been killing each other all this time, but maybe we didn't have to?" It was hard to speak; his chest was starting to hurt. "I think this whole war was something we could have avoided if only we'd known how to talk to each other. And now we do."

The Bugger did not move, but he knew that she had heard, and knew that somewhere else, somewhen else, her queen had heard too.

Hikaru opens his eyes.

"I know it's too late. I know there's no time left. But maybe…could you show me again, the place you showed me before? Because," his eyes prickled with tears, "I just want to finish our game."

Sai, he says. Sai. Are you here?

And hearing the queen's reply, Hikaru reached out, one last time, to play.

- 0 − 0 -

He stands among the ruins of an alien village, long-forgotten wind and rain and sun pelting the fragile skin of his upturned face.

He frowns at the strangeness of it. It is like and unlike earth, or what he remembers of earth. The rain is hot. The wind is not so strong, but blows too haphazardly for his silly tourist umbrella to be of any use. The ground is the most bizarre thing of all, the way it keeps moving around like a red loamy sea, undulating in moist wavy furrows.

It is the Bugger village, strangely, that he finds most comforting; despite all its alienness, the nonsensical insect shapes, he understands why its tunnels run so deep, why its needles reach to the sky.

He doesn't spend long pondering. His destination is far. He has no guide. None of the colonists would take him across the sea-desert, not for the amount of money he could give them. He has nothing of value on his person other than the ancient earth relic in his backpack, and that he cannot give away. Anyway, maybe here, where survival is the only true currency, a block of wood is just a block of wood, for all the grand old memories of earth it might conjure.

He walks.

It's a long walk. It gives him time to think, to casually curse at the person he's walking toward. After all those years of travel, hundreds of light-years spent cowering in the dark places of a dozen different starships, keeping his face hidden in necessary fear, he thought this last part would be easy.

He nearly turns back when he comes to a sheer cliffside. The bottom looms a hundred metres below. Yet when he looks hard enough, he realizes he knows the way down. He knows there's a trail hidden in the scrub trees, and the descent is not as frightening as it looks.

On the way down the cliff, rain and wind gradually lighten. At the bottom of the cliff, the ground is flat and comfortingly solid, slate-black stone instead of red loamy sea. Rainwater runs in tinkling rivulets down the rock, a meditative counterpoint beneath the beat of constant rain.

Seeing this, he begins to understand why he is here.

Feeling whimsical, he takes out the umbrella from his backpack and opens it. He's already soaked, but since he bought the thing he might as well use it. It rests on his shoulder, a reassuring, nonsensical weight.

He keeps walking.

He knows he has reached his destination when he hears the wind chime, a sound both alien and familiar. He looks up and sees it hanging from the bluff, a lonely signpost in the wilderness: the coarse bell carved from red animal bone, the wet paper tail a rough cottony grey, the shape of it ancient and heartbreakingly young all at once.

It rings. It rings again, gentler now, against the rain.

For a moment he stands stock still, eyes wide, ears open, as memories of earth and home and family assault him anew.

Then, after the moment passes, he shakes his head and moves on.

He comes to a house. It is rough-hewn, unlovely, built by unskilled hands.

He steps onto the stone verandah, walks through the open door. He feels the breeze catch at his hair, hears the wind chime ring faintly behind him.

Seated on a floor woven of reeds, as if waiting for him, is a person he thinks he knows.

The person's hair is long and black and sleek. He wears clothing from another planet, another era. His face is both very old and very young. It is lined and weathered, but the eyes are piercing, dragon-sharp.

For the first time in a hundred earth years, the traveller calls out the name of this boy, this man, this ghost.

- 0 − 0 -

"Touya?"

Touya Akira, hearing his name, looked up.

In front of him was a boy. The boy's face was familiar. Surely it had not changed since Touya last saw it, for all that a hundred years had passed.

"Ah," Touya said, "I knew you at Battle School, didn't I?"

The boy gazed back steadily.

"You'll have to forgive me for not remembering your name. My memory is not as good as it used to be."

After a moment of further staring (Touya was not bothered by this, as he would have been in his youth), the boy folded up his umbrella, laid it aside, and then sank to one knee—a strange act of reverence from another time, another world, another way of life. But maybe the kneeling was purely a practical motion; it made it easier for the boy to take off his backpack, to reach in and pull out something heavy and square and carved of kaya wood…

"My name is Hong Suyong," said the boy, holding out the goban of Touya Kouyo in his small, outstretched hands, "and if you have the time, sir, I'd like to tell you a lot of things, like where I got this, and who gave it to me, the tengen hand he played last…but first…it would please me greatly if we might play a game together, Touya Akira."

And Touya Akira, hearing the ghost of another in those words, felt his breath catch.

But after a moment he smiled, bowed his head, and said, "Of course. I have all the time in the world."

The wind chime sang in agreement.

- End -

I hope no one is hopelessly confused XD Please let me know if you are!

"Yose" was probably the most difficult thing I've ever written. XD Much harder than "Hikaru's Game," which I wrote in one sitting. I started typing out "Yose" during esamastation's Random Hikago Event on Tumblr about two months ago, when I naively thought I could get the fic done in a week, in time for the event. HA. HA HA.

My first draft, which opened with Hikaru in Tactical School, had Ko Yeongha in it as a major character, and got way too into shipboard politics, was up to 10,000 words before I realized that I needed to trash it. Sorry, Ko Yeongha, but your flouncing around was just dragging the story out forever, and I needed to get to the end of the war!

In the course of writing that boring first draft I also did a bunch of research about space travel that I ended up not needing at all. No one wants to hear me talking out of my ass about topics I know nothing about, and anyway space travel is going to be a lot different even twenty years from now, never mind a gazillion years in the future .

So basically, figure out yer pacing and scope before you put down 10,000 words and do all sorts of needless research -_-

I hope, after all my wrangling, I managed to create a fitting end to the "Hikaru's Game" series (which I'd never planned to be a series in the first place.) Writing this has meant a lot to me-Hikago and Ender's Game are two of my favourite stories, and I've always been touched that there are people out there who don't think I'm completely crazy for connecting them together. Thank you to everyone who's read and/or commented over the last 10 years and made me feel like it's all been worth it. Like Shindou and Touya and Sai, I love the feeling of connection with all you people, even if you're sitting at a computer far away. :)

Comments and criticism are very welcome! I am kind of nervous about this story. It took me 10 years to get here, after all.