A hundred kilometers was terrifying enough.
Two hundred, even such fighting men as these would likely be carried into the infirmary at the end of it.
"This is not fair. I lose, and I run two hundred kilometers. You lose, and it is only the penalty taken off," Cao Bing retorted.
Zhao Chen laughed scornfully, looked at Cao Bing, pointed at his own rank, and then at the other man. "Fair? You speak to me of fairness, with that standing of yours? I might perfectly well not carry this wager out at all. And simply punish you outright, would that not be perfectly fair?"
Cao Bing was silent a moment, and at the last stared at Zhao Chen. "Very well! I take the wager."
"Go and make an interstellar air-combat simulator ready. Broadcast it live to every man here, so that you may not say afterward that I bullied you." Zhao Chen stripped off his uniform coat and tossed it to a subordinate beside him whose look pleased him.
He noticed at this point that the senior colonel had not gone.
"Sir, is there anything further?" Zhao Chen asked.
"I am merely curious about this wager of yours." Nor did the senior colonel hide his curiosity.
For though a new officer lights his three fires, it is seldom one sees a thing come to drawn swords and bent bows so fast as this.
The senior colonel glanced at Cao Bing, who had already gone to make ready.
And gave him a friendly word of warning besides. "This Cao Bing has behind him a second-rank military-industrial family, whose chief production is interstellar fighters and interstellar drones. So that from childhood, steeped in it by eye and ear, Cao Bing is very practiced in the flying and the handling of interstellar fighters. Aboard this mother ship he is beyond doubt the ace pilot. You would do well to have a care."
The corner of Zhao Chen's mouth lifted slightly. "Ace pilots are what I fight."
And as he finished, the soldiers at a distance reported that the two interstellar air-combat simulators were ready.
Two simulated cockpits, able to reproduce everything an interstellar fighter does in air combat, and reproducing at the same time, one to one, every effect upon the pilot besides: gravity, bodily strength, and the rest,
which may be called a ninety-nine percent simulation of real combat.
"The battle map is yours to choose." Zhao Chen sat down into the cockpit, glanced at Cao Bing alongside, and spoke mildly.
Cao Bing's mouth twitched.
For the choice of the battle map carries great advantage in it.
To choose a map one is skilled and familiar in, for instance, may raise one's chance of winning three parts in ten outright.
And this fellow was so insolent as to let him choose the battle map himself.
"Hmph. Don't say afterward that I bullied you. Random." And with that Cao Bing tapped the random selection outright.
Soon a battle map appeared before them both.
And, it being broadcast to every man, all of them saw as well what map the random choice had thrown up.
"Good grief, it's Interstellar Sea City, of all places."
"This is the very map our Leader Cao knows best."
"If I remember rightly, Leader Cao's win rate at Interstellar Sea City stands at a hundred per cent."
Flattering voices came from all about.
Cao Bing could not keep the corner of his mouth from lifting; he looked at Zhao Chen in challenge. "Sir, this Interstellar Sea City is the map I know best. Won't you change it for another?"
"It does not signify. Let it stand," Zhao Chen said carelessly, and then sat down into the cockpit.
The cockpit's transparent canopy came slowly down.
Cao Bing's mouth twitched again; this Zhao Chen was insolent past all belief.
Presently, when you have lost, we shall see how insolent you are.
Cao Bing said no more, and sat down into his own cockpit.
Both of them were ready.
And soon this duel began.
The senior colonel watched the picture of the battlefield before him.
A battlefield called Interstellar Sea City.
What is called Interstellar Sea City is in fact the name given to a famous place of interstellar air combat.
A ring-field battlefield of the planet Sea City, whose conditions are very complicated, so that it has always been a classic battle map of interstellar air combat.
And the interstellar fighters the two of them flew were quasi-T6 Rose Knight-class craft.
At which the senior colonel frowned slightly.
If he remembered rightly, this Zhao Chen seemed to have no record of real combat flying this Rose Knight class at all.
Which is to say that this might well be his first time flying a quasi-T6 Rose Knight-class interstellar fighter.
Or that he might have handled one a few times before he was posted to serve here.
But it could by no means be called practiced,
which was not a good look at all.
For if Zhao Chen were beaten in this interstellar air combat, it would beyond doubt be a slap upon his own face.
And what standing he had here would be gone in an instant.
But very soon the result of the fight slapped the senior colonel's own face, thoroughly and to the full.
Three minutes.
The blue side destroyed.
The cockpit canopy came slowly open.
Cao Bing sat there with astonishment all over his face, and did not stir in any part.
Zhao Chen, for his part, looked without a change of countenance at the crowd standing dumbfounded about him. "Whoever else is unconvinced may come and challenge me. This is the one chance you will have. But whoever loses a challenge has fifty kilometers added to his penalty, without exception. Though the battle map and the craft are yours to choose."
At those words,
the hearts of no few proud men there were kindled at a stroke.
For those who serve here as interstellar fighter pilots have every one a pride of their own.
And now here was a man treading upon that pride and standing over their heads.
How were they to bear it?
And what mattered most, though this was a simulation of real combat, it was in truth no different from flying an interstellar fighter indeed, and the load upon the body was real.
"Again!" Cao Bing cried out all of a sudden.
Zhao Chen turned his head coldly and looked at him.
Cao Bing's whole face was flushed red; he roared it with all the strength that was in him.
"If I lose, I will run three hundred kilometers!"
Zhao Chen said nothing, and only closed his cockpit canopy in silence.
Cao Bing closed his own at once.
The second round began.
This one ended faster still.
Two minutes of fighting.
Cao Bing, beaten.
The canopy opened.
"Again!" Cao Bing's head was down, and both his hands seemed to be shaking.
Zhao Chen said nothing, and went on to another fight.
The third: one minute fifty seconds. Cao Bing, beaten.
The fourth: one minute forty-five seconds. Cao Bing, beaten.
The fifth: one minute forty-three seconds. Cao Bing, beaten.
"Again!" Cao Bing was shouting now like one half out of his wits, for after five hard fights one upon another he was soaked through from head to foot.
His combat suit's performance kept his body well enough, but his face was all beads of sweat.
"Help your Leader Cao Bing down." Zhao Chen gave the order quietly to the men of the First Squadron.
At which the men of the First Squadron came forward at once and took their Leader Cao under the arms.
And as Cao Bing left the cockpit, both his legs were shaking.
"Who else will come?" Zhao Chen said again, in a voice not heavily pitched, and which yet seemed to strike straight at every heart there.
And at this a deputy squadron leader from among the latecomers raised his hand.