Crix grinned and then continued to clarify. He enjoyed explaining how things worked. “Yes, that’s part of it! An abnormal barometric pressure system underground from a source unknown feeds two naturally formed vertical tunnels, and that creates a wind vortex. This condition gives those who enter a weightless effect!” Crix gestured with his hands as though he was weightless.
“The two vortex tunnels converge at the lower center called the blind zone because, at that level, there is almost no visible light. The team’s bases are located over the tunnel entrances. It’s a crazy and unpredictable game as traversing the vertical tunnels can get fast and tricky, especially since the opposing team’s sentries are looking to take your head off with their quorum sticks to stop you from reaching your goal. Luckily, I have two of the best guards around!”
Crix’s tone changed as he stared down at the floor. “Unfortunately, Tirix was playing forward in my absence and got roughed up by that unfriendly individual you met in the street yesterday. He has a broken arm and leg.” Crix snarled his nose and clenched his teeth at the thought of Akhal. “My team is currently in the midst of a championship series against TZ Five, Akhal’s team. We were one game from winning the series before that crushing loss two days ago. Today’s game decides the championship. I have to be there.” Crix fidgeted with the helmet he was holding.
Krath bounced up with eagerness to go watch, but Kerriah placed her hand up to stop him. Crix looked at her and hoped she would understand.
“Wait, are you sure you’re up for this?” she questioned. “I mean you just discovered that your only family member is dead and that you’re to be evicted from your home. That’s on top of everything we just went through. This just seems irrational that you would want to go play some game right now.”
Crix looked down again and kicked at a loose plank on the floor. “I know it seems senseless from the outside, but I have to do this. I already let my friends down. At this point, they are all I have left in Troika. I can’t do it to them again, or I will just lose myself and all things that tie me to my childhood.” He was not ready to succumb to grief. He wanted to push it aside and deal with it another day.
Kerriah touched his arm and looked directly into his eyes. “I get it. It’s just that I . . . we,” she looked back glaring briefly at Krath, “we cannot have you get hurt over something like this right now. You have to look at things from a bigger perspective now.”
“I am! I—” Crix shouted in frustration over this lecture. He wanted to explain but could not. He just needed to make things right. His life was spinning out of control, and this game was something that he could still do for his friends, win something that was important to them. “Look, I understand that you don’t get what’s going on with me right now, but I have to do this regardless of whether it’s right or wrong!”
Kerriah dropped her grasp of his arm and let out an exhausting sigh. “Fine.”
Krath looked at each of them, and then resumed his enthusiasm over watching a full-contact sport. “Well, little buddy, let’s get goin’. We can’t have tya lettin’ your buddies down again on our account. Besides, I could use a little spectatin’ leisure time.” Crix quietly sighed. He felt an elevated sense of pressure at the thought of his newfound companions watching the big game.
“Sure, if you guys want to watch, I could probably get you into the player’s zone,” Crix hesitantly replied.
“I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” Kerriah assured. “But we are going to have to go there under concealment. Marck agents, searchers, or satellites could possibly detect us here in the open. We should take extra precautions,” she reminded them both and tapped her finger to her chin while trying to devise a plan. Kerriah was always thinking two steps ahead of everyone else.
Crix placed his hands on top of his head, exhaled, and then turned to leave the room. He returned in a couple of minutes with two dark grey cloaks in his arms. He threw one to Kerriah and held the other up, eyeing it against Krath’s big frame.
“Hmmm, not sure how this is going to fit your husky build. I think it will, though you may look a bit silly.” He snickered.
“Hahaha, go ahead, make fun of the old guy, real cute.” Krath snatched the cloak from Crix.
“We had these from a funeral rite we attended several years back.” Crix remembered attending this funeral with Haflinger. It was for one of Haflinger’s oldest friends.
Crix could not believe Haflinger was gone. He shook his head as if trying to shake out the memory. He could not think about that right now. He needed to focus. The two slipped on the heavy cloaks, and immediately, Krath’s split down the backside as he attempted to cinch it around his broad shoulders. Kerriah looked away to hide her smile from Krath.
“Well, at least I can breathe now,” he said as the torn garment hung to his knees and elbows, giving him the appearance of an overstuffed doll.
***
They arrived via public transport carts pulled by droona beasts. When the locals saw Crix in his uniform, they gave cheers of admiration. Upon their arrival, the crowds were already standing around tiered, circular catwalks above the two tunnel entrances of the Barrillian Vortex Arena; they were roaring and chanting with pure crazed excitement.
Underneath the crowd noise, there was a heavy rumbling from the vortex as the air pulled in and pushed out of the two massive holes below. Crix and his new friends’ eardrums pulsated with the continual changes in air pressure as they neared the interconnecting arena. Krath dug his finger in his left outer ear and muttered something under his breath.
Kerriah was amazed at the sights and sounds of this event. At random times, long funnels of air shot out from the gigantic holes, and the crowds cheered in anticipation. She found herself mesmerized by all the activity and excitement. The large spectator girders, constructed from timber, encircled the vortex openings from high above, and some spanned crisscrossed allowing a direct, downward view into the lighted tunnels below.
As they approached the tall, wooden gate to the player’s concourse, it groaned open slowly and revealed an off-limits area. Before them stood two stout Andors that blocked their way.
“Crix!” One of them greeted him, and then looked over at his odd-looking travel companions with a surprised look on his face. “Are you ready for the big game? I know your team sure missed you at the last engagement,” the robust Andor inquired.
“As ready as I’m going to be, Claynor.”
“Well, I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you. They are over there by Vortex One,” Claynor said. The other Andor stood firmly while staring hard at Krath and Kerriah.
Crix casually popped Claynor in the chest with the back of his hand and motioned to Krath and Kerriah.
“Claynor, these are my friends visiting from off territory, and they’ve never seen annexis played before. Do you mind if they join me in the player zone for an up-close experience?”
Claynor sized them both up. “Hmmm, I don’t know. They’re a strange-looking lot. Off territory, huh? I typically don’t allow outsiders in the player zone. In fact, I don’t usually let outsiders in at all.” His lips flapped in a loud exhale. “Okay, just this once. I don’t want any trouble in there, understood?” He pointed authoritatively at Krath and Kerriah.
They both nodded in agreement. He stepped aside and allowed them to pass. As Crix passed by, Claynor shouted, “Hey, Crix. I’m real sorry to hear about Haflinger.” Crix solemnly bowed his head in reply and continued walking toward his team. He could feel the tightness of grief build up in his throat, but today, he would concentrate on the game and his friends.
At Vortex One, the five players of team Gears gathered around with their helmets under their arms, strategizing the forthcoming game. One of the sentries, Alta, looked up and noticed Crix.
“Crix! All right, now we have a game!” he shouted, excited over seeing him. The other team members walked over to express their relief that he was there, except for Tirix. He remained back with a look of contempt on h
is face.
“What’s wrong with Tirix?” Crix appeared concerned.
“Well, you’re not exactly his favorite Andorian alien resident right now. After missing the last game, I suppose you can’t blame him. Akhal put a real hurt on him. His leg is in bad shape. Your no-show weakened our team. But hey, I just want to win this thing today and maybe put a little hurt on Akhal, if possible,” Clyde, the bulky guard for the team, replied with a wink. “Also we are a player short, so I brought in my cousin Caspi for the guard position. Caspi is no Tirix, but he’s no greenhorn either. He should be able to hold his own out there and cover your flank.” Crix looked over at Caspi with skepticism. Next to Clyde, Caspi was relatively small for a typical annexis guard.
“Not to worry, Crix, I won’t let you down.” Caspi defended his small stature. Crix shook his hand and observed his bright tan hide and muscular build, which gave him a youthful, athletic appearance; however, his neatly braided silver mane and soft hands seemed more like someone who would enjoy reading books rather than smacking people with quorum sticks. Crix was unsure how he could help, but they did not have any other option.
“Okay, well, I suppose we don’t have any alternatives at this point,” Crix responded. “Give me a minute.” Crix walked over to reconcile with Tirix but received an ice-cold greeting.
“What do you want?” Tirix mumbled with his leg propped up in a splint. He was wearing a drab green shirt torn near the neckline, his normally deep red skin tone appeared washed out, and his thick, black mane was unkempt.
He looks bad. He doesn’t look like himself, Crix thought, and then whispered, “Tirix, I feel terrible for letting you guys down. I really do, but there is something larger than any annexis match going on right now. Besides—”
“No! You know what? Just forget it! I don’t want to hear your sorry excuses anyway! This is the most important series of the season and probably the most important one for us ever! You couldn’t even let us know where you were so we could at least take a forfeit! Instead, we got it handed to us in a bad way, and now, I’m out for the final game! We could have finally stripped the championship title from those lowlifes!” Tirix’s chest constricted rapidly, winded from his angry rant. He was not able to see past his resentment of the unfair loss due to Crix’s absence. He only wanted to stew in his rage and unhappiness.
“We still ca—” The loudspeakers introducing the teams and playing up to the crowd interrupted Crix. He looked at Tirix and then to the team. “Let’s get into position, guys,” Crix commanded his team, having to leave the relationship mending with Tirix for later.
Together, Crix’s team placed on their helmets and took their positions around Vortex One, their assigned base and entrance to the arena. The Barrillian Vortex Arena had two entrances, one for each team. Each entrance opened to a tunnel that leads to the blind zone, and then over to the other team’s tunnel. TZ Five, Akhal’s team, took position over Vortex Two. The game was about to begin.
All players clipped their belts to suspension cables that anchored to the top of their vortex entrance. They leaned inward over the tunnels while the anchors kept them secure. An annexis official placed the individual scoring batons via long hooks to a permanently fused pole across each entrance, and each team had two batons. Directly above, the crowds peered downward from spiraled decks built of sturdy timber. The players’ adrenaline started to surge.
As Crix looked straight down into the gusting, wind-filled holes, he thought about Tirix, wishing he were there alongside him. The view down would give anyone not well experienced in the sport a sickening pit of dizziness within the stomach. Each team member grabbed a quorum stick, clenching it with both hands, prepared to defend their batons and attack the opposing team.
Kerriah and Krath stood on the lower maintenance tier of the observation deck. It provided a closer view than that of the regular spectators. They could feel the waves of vibrations under their feet. Kerriah looked down into the tunnels as the powerful air gusts spouted, swirled, and reverberated below her. She raised one eyebrow questioningly and looked over at Krath. “These guys must be nuts.”
Krath just continued to stare intently, almost jealous that he was not latched onto the edge of the vortex tunnel. “The thrill of danger and a sport cross all species. ‘Sides . . . I could think of much worse things they could be doin’ with their time. Like listenin’ to some blabbering government politician flap his lips, idolizing idiots, or starin’ at their comm devices like lifeless machines.” Kerriah gave him a smirk and shook her head.
“I still think they’re nuts,” she repeated and rolled her eyes.
Four ceremonial Andors positioned further back from the tunnels held red flags high in the air. Loud horns blasted out above the cheers of the crowds. As they lowered the flags, the players released their clasps and dropped perilously down into the two tunnels. From a spectator viewpoint, their bodies became smaller as they fell deeper into the vortex, with the exception of the sentries. These two team members leveled out and took advantage of the prevailing air gusts; their job was to hover near the top of their tunnel to protect the team’s two batons, which hung on a pole suspended above their entrance.
Deeper inside, Crix and his two guards skillfully pointed their bodies downward into a diving position to reach the blind zone faster. The blind zone was the center point where the two vortex tunnels joined. These players fought against the constant pushing and pulling of the powerful underground winds created by the abnormal barometric pressure system, and each focused on reaching their objective—retrieving the other team’s batons—while not being smashed into the jagged sidewalls of the tunnel.
Crix noticed that Caspi had already fallen behind and lagged too far to offer any protection from Akhal and his guards. Through his helmet comm, Crix shouted at Caspi, “Caspi, you have to keep up. We can’t get separated!” Caspi did not reply.
The light faded behind Crix as he continued to dive deeper into the tunnel, and the hundreds of tubes woven in his jumpsuit began to glow. He and his other guard, Clyde, quickly reached the bottom of Vortex One. They gracefully sprung up from the lower joining iron grid within the blind zone and propelled themselves toward TZ Five’s entrance and their two batons. This was a fast-moving game. A spike of adrenaline jolted through Crix as he realized that they reached the blind zone before Akhal. They were in the opposing team’s tunnel, Vortex Two. Caspi was still not answering, but that did not keep Crix from being excited. He felt like nothing could go wrong. He was on the move and charged up.
However, he did not revel in that feeling for very long. A jarring blow struck the right side of his helmet. It was Akhal. He fixated on Crix, filled with hate and vengeance. He continued swinging his quorum stick repeatedly with great ferocity and kept Crix pinned up against a protruding rock. Akhal was enraged. The rock dug into Crix’s shoulders and back. He felt a shredding pain but ignored it. Akhal twisted his body and used the vortex’s wind strength and pressure to gain momentum for each forceful blow. Crix realized he was in trouble. He needed his guards. Where is Caspi?
Emerging from the darkness, Clyde swooped in and knocked Akhal away, which gave Crix a second to recover. Crix, not seeing Akhal any longer, darted up toward his primary objective of acquiring the first of two batons needed to secure their victory. Crix maintained his concentration and kept his eye on the prize. He kept his body centered in the middle of the tunnel, where he was able to gain the most speed from the strongest air drafts. Still, Akhal was right behind him, reaching to grab his foot.
Then, all of a sudden with great speed and strength, Caspi fiercely drove Akhal into the tunnel wall with the end of his quorum stick. The silver-maned young Andor was excited to prove himself to Crix.
Now furious and seeking to destroy, Akhal focused his fury on Caspi. He lunged toward the new player and angrily ripped the quorum stick out of Caspi’s hands and flung it away like a piece of scrap. Caspi was shocked; Akhal had moved much faster than he had expected. At that mo
ment, Akhal propelled himself from the tunnel wall and into Caspi, smashing him against the far side. He viciously dragged Caspi’s head down the rockface. Caspi’s helmet cracked and buckled under the stress until the young Andor finally lost consciousness.
Akhal abandoned Caspi’s limp body in the center of Vortex Two’s tunnel. His helpless figure flopped around like a twirling leaf in a windstorm. An Andor arbitrator, posted in a narrow offshoot within the tunnel, took notice of Caspi’s unconscious body. The arbitrator sent out a single beam of light across the tunnel to indicate the recall of injured players and a pause of the game. Clyde witnessed the unnecessary roughness, rushed over, and secured Caspi’s body to an extraction line, and the rest of the players directed themselves out by riding the vortex gusts upward.
***
Back out on the players’ concourse, Clyde pulled the crinkled helmet from Caspi’s head to check his injuries. The other players of team Gears ran over, concerned about their fallen teammate.
“Are you okay, Caspi? Caspi?” Clyde slapped him across his face in an unsuccessful effort to get him to respond just before the annexis medic on duty nudged him out of the way. The medic placed a beam of light into Caspi’s eyes and then called for a gurney. From across the concourse, a conceited grin filled Akhal’s face; he had taken down another Gears player.
Clyde observed this act of defiance and was about to spout off a strong response when he was interrupted by the medic. “It looks like he’s suffered a severe concussion. We need to take him to the infirmary for a series of internal imaging scans,” the medic told the team, and then proceeded to load Caspi onto the gurney.
Enraged by the thought of what Akhal had done to Tirix and now Caspi, Clyde tossed his helmet to the ground and charged at Akhal. He wanted payback. He wanted to settle the score. He wanted to hurt something or someone. He was able to make contact and knock Akhal to the ground; then, all of a sudden, an oversized Andor grabbed Clyde by the throat, lifted him off his feet, and cruelly slammed him to the ground. This Andor was part of the security team at the arena. Before he could do any real harm, the other team members of Gears pulled Clyde back. He kicked and shouted as they muscled him back to their side of the concourse.
Age of the Marcks Page 8
