Beyond the Zenith

It was a moonless night. The hilltop rose above the valley, but the layered and distant peaks rose higher still.

Wind swept through the darkness. Summer-lush grass blades brushed against Han Qingyu’s face and body. The bristly seed-heads were slightly sharp. The red earth, sun-warmed all day, still held some heat, and the pebbles below were a little hard against his back.

The four-grooved cone dagger had since been pulled free. Blood had run off it easily, dripping off until the blade was clean once more.

Han Qingyu was now lying in the grass at the top of the slope, beside the two bodies.

Looking back, there had been almost no gap between the instant the thought surfaced and the snap decision to burst into action. There was no transition, no bridge.

He had not dared to leave himself any space to think or waver, fearing that the slightest hesitation would cost him the nerve to do it.

So, he acted the moment the thought surfaced. Han Qingyu used the dagger, buried in the earth as a brace, to launch himself forward in a low, flat dive, pulling the dagger free as he moved, sweeping the blade around.

The result was in front of him.

If he had hesitated and pounced on them just half a second later, they would have fully reactivated their source energy devices, and he would likely be the one on the ground instead.

One fact was undeniable. Lao Jian’s words, spoken in passing, had played a decisive role throughout all of this, in ways the man himself could never have imagined.

As the saying goes, even if the speaker bore no ill will, the listener might.

There was also the source energy.

Han Qingyu held a blue source energy crystal in his hand, and the warm, spring-clear source energy flowed from his palm into his body. One drop, two drops. A third, a fourth.

Gone again, emptied so quickly. There was so little.

This shouldn’t be happening. What if I join the unit and this happens, where I absorb the whole thing on contact? What then? he wondered, rolling over to open the other man’s metal case.

This was the third block. The last one. He’d already searched both bodies, and neither carried any spares.

Han Qingyu held his breath, focused his attention, and tried to control it.

One drop... Stop.

The flow stopped.

He could feel another drop of source energy attempting to flow toward him from within the blue crystal, but he managed to hold it back with conscious effort. A quiet surge of satisfaction filled him.

He then tried to push the source energy back into the crystal, but to no avail.

After a brief moment of consideration, Han Qingyu decided to let go of the source energy that remained in the last block.

He put the blue crystal back into both metal cases, leaving everything else undisturbed. With that, he climbed down the hill, returned the blade and dagger to the fallen soldier, and closed that case as well.

After doing all of that, Han Qingyu found another mountain stream, washed his hands and body, and then ran to a different small hill some distance away, where he found a new ditch to lie down in.

Everything settled back into silence and darkness. This respite allowed Han Qingyu to finally process and register his actions.

I just killed people.Right. I have to get used to that if I want to stay alive.

He then began to quietly and carefully examine the source energy within his body.

At this point, only about twenty minutes had passed since Han Qingyu had decided to climb that hill for a look.

***

Another ten-odd minutes later, Han Qingyu heard the sounds of a group coming through the valley mouth in the distance and kept carefully silent.

“Little Han, where are you? Come on out,” Lao Jian called as he walked along the valley floor.

Lao Jian had made it back alive.

Han Qingyu crawled out of the ditch where he was hiding, at a small hillside at the far end of the valley.

“Let’s go,” Lao Jian said when he spotted him.

Han Qingyu jumped down and asked, “You won?”

“Yeah. Most of Platoon 764 came.” Lao Jian nodded, falling into silence and taking the lead as they walked.

The battle he’d just experienced was exceptional in both ferocity and casualties, even by the standards of his ten years of fighting.

Han Qingyu noticed the solemn air about Lao Jian’s person and followed silently.

He said nothing to Lao Jian about what had just happened, for three reasons: First, he hadn’t worked out an explanation for why he’d been able to kill those two men. Second, he had “consumed” two blue-crystal source energy cores. Third, there was still the tiniest chance that he had misidentified the enemy.

***

On the way down the mountain, Lao Jian suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood. Raising a hand to wipe it away, he turned to Han Qingyu with a relaxed smile and said, “It’s nothing serious.”

Then he coughed up a second mouthful. Then, a third...

There was blood all over the ground.

Lao Jian pressed both hands hard against his knees, stood up shakily, and waved a hand. “I’m fine.”

Han Qingyu said nothing.

“I’m the platoon leader. With three platoons present, I can’t let Platoon 752 lose face,” Lao Jian added by way of explanation.

With that, he straightened up and walked on down the hill.

When both of them were back at the SUV, Lao Jian stopped with his hand on the door handle. After a few seconds of silence, he turned to look at Han Qingyu with a somewhat awkward expression. “I might not be able to take you home... I think I need to make a stop at the medical station first.”

Han Qingyu stared at his pale face. “Okay.”

“Are you all right on your own?”

“I’ll be fine. I’m a mountain kid.”

“Alright. Watch yourself on the road.”

“Will do.”

Han Qingyu was unhooking his bicycle from the back of the SUV when Lao Jian’s communicator received an incoming call.

The voice on the other end told him that signs of “Wiper” activity had been detected near the supply depot. Everyone was to take care on the way back, so...

“Hold on.”

Han Qingyu was about to ride off when Lao Jian called out from behind him, jogging out onto the road.

After a brief hesitation, he finally continued, “Actually, come with me to the medical station first. You’re joining us soon enough anyway. I’ll get patched up, and then I’ll take you home.”

Han Qingyu shook his head. “My parents are waiting for me for dinner. It’s already very late. They’re probably worried sick.”

Lao Jian looked at him awkwardly.

“After tomorrow, I probably won’t be coming home for dinner for a long time,” Han Qingyu added.

Lao Jian turned his head away, was quiet for a moment, then turned back.

“Alright. Just ride straight and don’t stop for anything. And don’t shout without a good reason.” He paused, then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a shoulder mark before handing it to Han Qingyu. “If anyone wearing gear and uniform that looks exactly like mine from that night stops you, you can show them this.”

The shoulder mark held a silver star. Han Qingyu took it and nodded. “Okay.”

“Now, look at my equipment carefully.” Lao Jian held out his deactivated device. “If their gear is even slightly different from mine, don’t let on about anything after they spot you. Just play dumb. Pretend you don’t know or understand anything. Clear?”

Han Qingyu nodded again, taking the time to study the device before finally glancing up at Lao Jian.

“Got it?” Lao Jian asked.

“Got it.”

“Then—”

“Who are those people, anyway?” Han Qingyu couldn’t help but ask.

Based on Lao Jian’s words, it seemed there was indeed a separate faction, one that also had source energy devices but was the enemy. The two on the slope were probably them.

That made Han Qingyu feel considerably lighter inside, though he still chose not to reveal his actions.

Lao Jian hesitated, then answered in a low tone, “They’re people who believe humanity is vile and deserves to be destroyed, though perhaps only their leadership truly thinks that. The ones lower down are mostly just going along with it, using it as an outlet.”

“Oh.” Han Qingyu found it genuinely difficult to understand why people like that would exist, so he said nothing more.

“You should be fine. Just think of yourself as an ordinary person,” Lao Jian instructed, deciding that traveling together at this point would actually bring greater danger to Han Qingyu.

“Okay.”

The two of them went their separate ways on that mountain road.

***

While Lao Jian and Han Qingyu were each making their way along the road, the Azure Coalition’s concealed supply depot in District 700 saw a flurry of activity.

The soldiers coming through from the bloody battle hadn’t yet had a chance to clean up, let alone attend to the bodies of their fallen comrades. The initial inquiry had just been completed, and deployed personnel were reporting back their findings.

“Little Wu is... dead. His body was found at the edge of the valley.”

“Right. Xiao Wu was on holding duty today. Perimeter patrol, correct?”

“Yes. The two Wipers who killed Xiao Wu are also dead, found at the top of a nearby hill.”

“Oh? Was it mutual destruction?”

“No. Based on the scene, it happened after they killed Xiao Wu. They were attacked from behind. Someone else ambushed and killed them.”

“Someone else. Who?”

“Unknown, but it definitely wasn’t one of ours. Let me bring up something else first. This might be more critical.” The person produced an object and placed it on the table. “We found this next to the two Wipers. This is a detonator.”

“That would explain it. We’ve just found a high-yield mine array, laid along the route we took to return from the battle,” a third person said.

The room fell into collective silence.

The deputy station commander, said to have originally been a military novelist, broke it. “So, it seems we’re all survivors of a near-miss catastrophe.”

Although no one spoke, every person in the room was imagining the destruction. They had passed directly through a high-yield mine array in their most weakened and depleted state. Their only saving grace was that the people lying in wait to press the detonator had been killed.

The sequence of events was actually quite clear.

Two spindle-shaped aircraft landed simultaneously. The depot’s garrison platoon deployed to meet them, and nearby units responded to reinforce. Wiper operatives had somehow gotten wind of it and moved in under cover, intending to trigger the mine array once the battle-worn defenders were on their way back. With their equipment deactivated, it would’ve been easy for them to kill everyone and then take the depot.

They had successfully laid the remote-detonated mine array, killed the patrol soldier, and were lying in wait on a hill. The only unexpected factor was that they had been killed.

After a moment, the depot’s station commander rose to his feet.

“To put it another way, someone just single-handedly saved sixty-three Azure Coalition soldiers, including all of us, as well as District 700’s concealed supply depot, all of the source energy and material stored here, and the twenty-two non-combat personnel at this post. Whoever they are, whatever their identity... First, salute!” With that, the station commander led with a salute.

More than thirty people inside the room, blood-stained and wounded, brought their right forearms across their chests, fist to heart, and saluted as one.