If it was twenty to thirty years old for Logan, it would have been even older when Lord Zemka bought it. Completely outdated. For modern times.
Even if he brought it sixty, eighty years ago, it would have been dirty cheap compared to other medical vessels.
But stocked enough, advanced enough to heal any wounded gladiators. Probably enough supplies and resources to grow clones as well.
An old bucket of bolts.
Logan couldn’t help but wonder if it was still capable of flight.
And, if the design was twenty to thirty years before his time, maybe he’d be capable of flying it.
Chapter 21
It turned out every last Sunday of the month was ‘Hitler Day.’ No children allowed in the Arena of Doom, as the whole day was filled with nothing but Hitler events. Hitlers getting hunted down by T-Rexes, groups of Hitlers all trying to run away from the expanding lake of lava, Hitler vs. Hitler (both melee and ranged), Hitler wrestling an alligator (both cyborg and organic alligators), Hitler slowly roasted over a spitfire, and multiple Hitlers dropped from different heights to see the difference in impact.
And those were just the opening acts.
The afternoon show was Logan’s time to ‘shine.’ Following giant Hitler vs. giant octopus, and just before Hitler trapped in a glass box slowly filling with piranha infested water. It wasn’t Logan’s first time in the ever-shifting maze, but it was his first time hunting multiple Hitlers with a plasma rifle.
Crickett’s stabbing was easy enough for Victor to heal up. Although, thanks to his medical order, Logan had been moved back to his bunk instead of the cell every night. It was a lot easier to clean up origin tubes after a night on a mattress compared to a night on a cold concrete floor.
And it also made it easier for Logan to sneak out every couple of nights, have another look at the ‘medical wing.’
There was no doubt about it. Lord Zemka had definitely purchased a leftover medical ship, and parked it outside of his Arena of Doom.
But had he bothered to strip it? Lots of the hatches had been sealed tight, and what power there was all routed to the one working medical room.
The ship could need an entire refurbishment to get operational. He’d explored the arena as best as he could. There was a parking lot just outside of the arena, but Logan hadn’t seen any ships permanently waiting there.
If Lord Zemka needed to escape the planet in a hurry, had he set up the medical ship to double up as his own escape pod?
If Logan was lucky, Lord Zemka would have been smart enough to leave the solar panels active the whole time.
It helped power the day-to-day operations of the ship, but left charging for a year, for ten years?
The ship would have more than enough to take off. To break orbit, travel across the system ten times over.
But not enough to get out of the Shennong system. Get somewhere else in the Cluster. Logan needed to get deeper into the ship, gain more intel. Twenty to thirty years ago was when everyone was converting over from nuclear reactors to fusion reactors. Would the medical ship need plutonium to get going? Where would he even get plutonium? Or would he need antimatter? Again, where would he get antimatter?
The distance between the systems was vast. Impossibly big. That needed a slingshot, faster than light travel that hurled a ship through the vast emptiness of space.
That was if he could pilot the ship. Even if he could, he’d need people to help out. A crew.
A platoon would be best, but at this point Logan would settle for just a squad of soldiers he could trust.
But for now, he had bigger worries.
Namely, he was losing to Yateley in the Hitler Hunt.
The maze constantly shifting, Logan had made six rights in a row and somehow hadn’t doubled back on himself. The walls only ever shifted when no one was looking (except for the crowd of course). Which meant Logan’s usually excellent internal map did him no good. He couldn’t plan out a route, he just had to aimlessly bumble about and hope he bumped into more Hitlers than Yateley.
Glancing up at the scoreboard, that hadn’t worked out well so far.
YATELEY: 12
LOGAN REXINGTON: 10
JAMES LOVE: 7
OOG: 4
CRICKETT: 2
After the double stabbing, Crickett had been as pleasant as could be with Logan. He was just happy not to get stabbed again, but she now showed a strange amount of respect to him. In her own way.
Logan was beyond ecstatic when she snuck down to help him clean the origin tubes. She didn’t help with the brushing, but towards the end of every day she’d find her way down with a cleaning bot, set it to clean one extra tube.
It was just enough aid to not be suspicious, while helping Logan work off his debt just a little bit faster. After countless days, and even more terrible improvised songs, Logan had finally been set free, allowed back into the arena, back to training, and back to freely roaming during the day.
For the moment, he’d been kept out of headline matches. Helping kill Nazis and dinosaurs (and one time Nazis riding dinosaurs) in the opening fights. Sometimes running gauntlets/obstacle courses for the crowd’s entertainment.
He hadn’t been anywhere near a match with a proper clone yet. Not like before. But he suspected Lord Zemka would try and bend him to his rule sometime soon.
Logan hadn’t seen much of their supreme ruler. Except for fights, where he’d sit in his VIP booth. Chomping down on grapes, slurping up cocktails, laughing with his guests and other VIPs as clones died beneath his feet.
Thanks to the maze around him, Logan had trouble seeing Lord Zemka.
Good.
He needed to focus. The maze was made of stone, a few flame torches lining the walls to help with the light. The sun beginning to set, Logan knelt down, looking at the bootprints.
The tread was a basic design. Nothing like the footprints of the other clones, nor his own boots.
Definitely belonging to a Hitler.
Logan checked his plasma rifle was fully recharged, breaking into a light jog. He must be doing something right, handed an exact recreation of his plasma rifle from his previous life. It was even weighted the same, the metal on the barrel reinforced to help ready to aim.
If he won this match, he’d get a few more silver pieces than Yateley. More importantly, he’d finally be able to afford another bar of Banana Burst Bonanza. It turned out quality chocolate was harder for Crickett to sneak in than alcohol, the price hilariously expensive.
But Logan needed another bar of chocolate, dammit. He’d been craving the taste ever since Crickett had given him the first bar. He couldn’t help but wonder if that had been her plan. Give him a free sample so he’d be hooked.
As clever as it was devious. Like the way she was avoiding killing too many Hitlers in the Hitler Hunt. No one in the crowd would be demanding her to fight again. She’d be free to run her smuggling business without too much risk of death.
Meanwhile Logan was focusing all his energy on getting money in the fights.
And getting a message off world. Finding a way to submit an info request. It would take weeks for the signal to bounce from Shennong to Topaz, but he just needed to know what happened to Trent. Any piece of info would be helpful, some kind of update.
It was then Logan stopped dead in his tracks, at a T-junction in the maze filled with Hitlers and gladiators.
Maybe he didn’t need to get the medical vessel fully operational.
Maybe he just needed to get their comm system working.
Any form of a plan disappeared as he heard screaming from the right.
Logan rushed down, his boots pounding on the sand of the arena as he spun around the corner.
Yateley.
Dressed in his full knight armor. His shiny metal plating was covered in blood, clumps of skin, even a small bit of bone clinging to the inside of his elbow.
He was holding one of the Hitler clones by the face, digging his plated fingers into his e
ye sockets.
That was a big reason Hitler Day was a no-children day. The gladiators were encouraged to be more violent, creative.
And the audience cheered on with sickening glee as the blood spurted from Hitler’s eye sockets.
Logan grimaced, taking a step back. It seemed Yateley had the kill. Logan would have to find another Hitler to up his score.
At least whatever Hitlers Logan found were taken care of with one plasma burst. Quick, a bit of gooey mess, but better than whatever Yateley was doing.
What was Yateley doing? Logan couldn’t help but pause as the medieval knight slid his plated thumbs out of Hitler’s skull. Blood poured from the wounds as Hitler stumbled about, whimpering in pain.
Yateley took the opportunity to kick him in the back of the knees, sending him stumbling to the ground.
The crowd cheered, Yateley waiting a couple of seconds as the Hitler clone began to stumble up, waving his arms around to try and steady himself.
Yateley grabbed him by the wrist, grabbing his middle finger, and snapped it backwards.
Logan winced as the Hitler clone shrieked in pain, clutching his hand, the middle finger pointing upwards at a sickeningly unnatural right angle.
As Yateley kicked Hitler in the shins, making him clutch his leg as he hopped in pain, Logan tried to think of the literally millions of people he had killed.
The families, the children. Not even killed, but used for sick medical experiments. A section of history Logan always glossed over, for fear of giving himself nightmares. The industrialized genocide. The horrific efficiency.
But watching the man with his eyes gouged out, clutching himself in pain…
It just felt wrong.
Which was why when Yateley bit down on Hitler’s ear, tearing it off, Logan took aim with his plasma rifle.
Yateley spat the ear back out at Hitler, grinning from ear to ear, blood dripping from his lip, running down the hairless scar on his chin.
His smile vanished as the purple glob of plasma flew through the air, slamming Hitler in the back.
It burned a perfect hole in the torso, like someone had taken an eraser to a picture of Hitler. Yateley leaned down, looking through the wound as big as his head, as Logan lifted up his plasma rifle and blew the vapor from the end of the barrel.
A bing sound echoed throughout the arena as Logan’s Hitler score went up by one. Logan was only one Hitler kill away from tying with Yateley. Two from winning.
Yateley snarled as the mutilated body of Hitler slumped over. The blood poured freely from his gouged eyes as he landed face-first, pooling beneath his face on the ground. The plasma wound had cauterized itself from the heat. But without a spine, a heart, or half his lungs, the Hitler clone had died instantly.
“What?” Logan shrugged. “You were taking too long.”
For the most part, Logan and Yateley had avoided each other. Sat at separate tables for meals, trained in different areas during the day.
That hadn’t stop Yateley from ‘accidentally’ smashing his shoulder into Logan when they walked past one another. Or dropping his weapon on his foot when they did cross paths during training.
Logan knew it was a bad idea to antagonize a bastard like Yateley.
But he just couldn’t resist. Not in the arena. Not today.
And neither could Yateley, as he jammed his hand into the plasma wound, grabbing the corpse of Hitler from the inside and hurling it at Logan.
The corpse flew through the air, leaving a trail of blood drops dribbling on the ground. Logan didn’t have enough time to jump out of the way.
But he did have just enough time to angle his plasma rifle through the open hole in Hitler’s chest. His plasma rifle popped out the end, Logan firing a warning shot just below Yateley’s feet. The plasma so hot it crystalized clumps of sand, Yateley stopped dead in his tracks as his head shook with rage.
“Easy, big guy,” Logan said, the inside of Hitler still uncomfortably warm, the warm scabs of the cauterized wound rubbing against his bare arms. “We’re here to fight the Hitlers, not each other.”
Yateley snarled, baring his teeth like an animal. He eventually turned around, stomping down into the maze, leaving bloody footprints as he slunk away.
After a few moments, Logan pushed the body of Hitler off himself, wiping his arm off as best as he could.
Logan glanced up, expecting to see the scoreboard.
Instead he saw the clip of him killing Hitler, Yateley throwing the corpse at him. It was playing on a loop, a strange murmur through the crowd, a few claps.
Had the audience enjoyed that display?
Logan groaned, checking his plasma rifle was still recharging fine as he went out further into the shifting arena.
Whatever beef he had with Yateley, it seemed the jeering crowds from the Arena of Doom were taking an interest.
That could only spell trouble.
Chapter 22
Yrsa could sleep through many loud noises. When she was alive, she’d slept through thunderstorms, huddled under a shelter of branches, cold water dripping on her. She’d slept through long battles, regaining strength before heading out to sunder more English bastards during a siege. She’d slept on boats during the most intense heat, waking up dripping in sweat.
Not even Yrsa could sleep through the rush of people. Sleeping on the bottom bunk, she was stirred by the pounding of footsteps. By people climbing down their ladders, sprinting from the barracks.
She threw the blanket off her body, sniffing the air around her. She could smell no fire, so why were people running?
Sliding on her boots of deerskin, she stood up from her bunk.
James Love was struggling to put his boots on, hopping on one foot, a couple of bunks down from her.
“Cowboy whore,” Yrsa called out to him, “why is everyone running?”
“It’s a Truncheon!” James called back, slamming his last foot into his boot. He sprinted past Yrsa in his red pajamas, the flap in the rear popping open as he went.
“Truncheon…” It took Yrsa a few moments to remember what the word meant. It was from the beyond time. A weapon of some sort.
But it had a different meaning in the Arena of Doom.
It meant the citizens of Hel, the ones who watched the fights instead of taking part in the glory, they got to vote.
They got to decide who would be the big headline fight they want to see next.
Yrsa couldn’t make way in the crowd. Her body too big to slide past the other gladiators, she had to run with the flow, heading towards the mess hall. The room with the biggest screen for gladiators.
A strange magic window, the screen showed far more than just what was outside. Yrsa had trouble following the images on it most days, and that morning was no exception.
People were crowded around the bottom, scrambling onto tables. The trays of steaming food sitting in the serving hatch were completely ignored, Marge herself slithering out of the gap, crawling up the wall to get a better look.
Thousands upon thousands of citizens were voting. More people than Yrsa had ever met (or killed) in her time alive.
The last Truncheon, Yrsa had missed out on the headline match by only a few hundred votes. But on that day the citizens of Hel had voted to see Grimsaw and Yateley battle it out. The barbarian had done his best against the knight, but had eventually been decapitated, Yateley slamming Grimsaw’s own axe into his neck, stomping onto the blade until the head popped off, spinning on its scalp before it came to a stop.
Perhaps now she would see her day in the arena?
It didn’t seem likely. Two names were growing bigger by the second, their bars rising up above the others by the thousands. Not only that, but every few seconds the image on the screen changed.
It showed images from the past, moments from the arena. Yrsa saw herself, slamming both her war hammers into the skull of Grimsaw. As the image played, she glanced across the mess hall as the barbarian gawped at the screen.
Like
she’d said, the barbarian had returned after a few days. The returned were always in a haze, but eventually they learned what had happened to them, understood that they were in Hel. Even if they had their own words for it, their own gods they believed had scorned them in death.
Still, the barbarian seemed disturbed to see his own demise on the screen. No matter how glorious it was.
The image changed once more. The ninja, prowling the shadows, before jumping out and plunging her sword into the back of a Nazi. The blade slid through his neck, sliding out the other side, blood pouring out as she pulled her weapon back out.
Logan Rexington. Yrsa shifted uncomfortably where she stood. She’d never been beaten like that in the arena. Never been left to live. She’d spent the next day in the medical wing, returning to full fighting health the day after.
He didn’t have the heart of a true warrior. Otherwise he would have killed her in the arena instead of leaving her like ailing cattle.
All because of the crossbow. Those bastard long-range weapons. Yrsa had hardly used a bow in her time, let alone the strange weapons of the beyond time.
But that was what Logan used, his plasma rifle hurling a glob of purple plasma through the air, carving a hole straight through the Hitler clone.
Yrsa watched as Yateley threw the corpse back at him, Logan sliding his rifle through the wound, shooting a warning shot at Yateley’s feet.
The clip played a few times on a loop before returning to the main voting screen.
Yrsa could still barely read, but even she could make out the two names at the top, bigger than all the rest.
Logan Rexington
Sir Yateley
It seemed the citizens of Hel were keen to see the two of them fight for real.
To the death.
Yrsa glanced over at Logan. He stood on top of a table, James next to him, the two staring at the screen.
She hoped that this time he’d be ready to kill. For his sake.
Because if Yateley was left alive at all after their fight, he would make Logan suffer like no one had suffered before.
Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1) Page 12
