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innocently on the porch in front of the Starlight Starbright Trailer Park.
That familiar videogame voice was very far away now, as was the trailer park and everything else he
could call familiar. It was unnerving to hear those same words spoken by the slick-skinned alien seated
next to him, though he should have expected it.
His first thought was for Centauri. For the first time in his young life he considered wringing an adult's
neck. If that was a sign of maturity, then he was maturing at an astonishing rate. But Centauri was
nowhere to be seen. Alex wondered if he'd ever see the old man again.
Face it. He was stuck.
"... defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan Armada," he muttered, finishing the sentence for his
alien friend. All was becoming clear now. Much too clear.
This wasn't a game. This was real. Evidently the videogame he'd mastered after dozens of hours and
quarters was far more than a toy whipped up in Silicon Valley by energetic hackers to separate teenagers
from their allowances. The game looked like other videogames, played like other videogames, but its fire
control systems and stratagems were drawn not from some programmer's imagination but from real
interstellar altercations. From reality.
He'd been recruited because of his success at the game. He could be sure of that much now. There was
an intimate connection between the game and this faraway conflict. For some reason outsiders had been
chosen to participate in the coming war, and good ole' game-whiz Alex was included among them. What
an honor. What luck. What a great prize. The booby prize.
By passing some carefully constructed test disguised as a videogame he'd won the right to be carted
halfway across the galaxy for strangers to shoot at. No way, Jose!
He looked anxiously toward the exit, but all the doors had been sealed. There was an undercurrent of
anticipation running through the assembled sapients that he could feel, and he had to admit to a certain
curiosity as to what this imposing Ambassador Enduran had to say. In any case, the only halfway clear
aisle leading outward from his chair led past the slumping Bodati, and that was a path he had no intention
of crossing again.
Besides, this wasn't in the game. The game never said anything about a prebattle conference or a visit
from some League official. He was curious, despite his anxiety. The League was a reality, not just a string
of synthesized words.
There was much more to this than repetitive space battles. There were reasons behind the actions he'd
mastered on the machine, real beings with matters of importance at stake. A lot more than a lousy couple
of quarters, that was for sure. Though he hadn't the slightest intention of getting involved, he couldn't shut
out his interest in the momentous events unfolding around him.
Anyway, he was stuck in the briefing room, at least until the Bodati moved. He might as well settle back
and pay attention to the speaker. Nothing was wasted. He might get a good essay for English out of it.
His own concerns were soon lost as he became caught up in the ambassador's speech. This was no
game to Enduran or any of the other aliens seated in the room. Worlds were at stake here.
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There was sadness in the ambassador's voice, but also determination. Here, Alex knew, was an
intelligent creature who abhorred war as the ultimate degradation of civilized species, who nonetheless
had been forced to countenance and organize armed resistance. Alex could sense the strain this decision
had put on him and found himself sympathizing. The speech Enduran was making wasn't easy for him. He
talked of the forthcoming conflict with obvious reluctance, as though the very mention of terms like "war"
and "battle" caused him physical pain.
"Eons ago, our ancestors, your ancestors, joined together to form the League, an association of civilized,
peaceful peoples and worlds. We abjured any further expansion, believing that further growth could only
result in an organization too large to be governed efficiently.
"Others outside the League have always been jealous of our stability and achievements. To protect
ourselves from their barbaric incursions the Frontier was established, a region unclaimed by the League
which we allowed no others to claim. As you know, it is impossible to define an actual boundary in
interstellar space because of the immense distances involved, so the real Frontier was in the mind." He
turned to gesture briefly at the illuminated screen hovering behind him. Lines of light moved about on the
screen in concert with his words, illustrating the points he made.
"Each member world of the League was equipped with a shield projector, able to forestall the approach
of any ship or cluster of ships determined to be hostile. As many of you are aware, such projections
render the drives of all modern vessels inoperative and are capable of incapacitating an entire
approaching fleet one ship at a time or all at once, as the requirements dictate. The closer a hostile vessel
approaches the more devastating the effects of the shield projector. A formidable and yet civilized
weapon.
"Safe from the chaos and ravages of war, we of Rylos and the other worlds of the League enjoyed all the
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