by Kennedy King
“I don’t think The Gold Standard hires mathematicians that make mistakes,” Rey mumbled back. True that might be, Galia wasn’t sure she trusted her own eyes. Daniel had entered the Olympia Gold alone, only to be assigned a survival rating of 60.
“That’s all, folks. Your contestants for the fifty-sixth Olympia Gold. Stay tuned for previews of the challenges, and footage from the Prelude that kicks it all off tomorrow,” Cybil smiled into the camera until the screen faded to black.
“Unbelievable,” Galia’s mouth hung somewhere between a grin and a gasp. It was all too much to digest at once. In the gap between the end of the broadcast and the beginning of idle conversation around the bar, a familiar burn flared up in Galia’s chest. She buried her face in her elbow to muffle a cough. It was a sound Rey knew all too well.
“Hey,” he put a hand back on Galia’s shoulder. She batted it away. “Hey, you need-”
“Don’t,” Galia silenced him, before another cough scratched her throat. “Stay. Don’t tell the others where I am. Make sure they enjoy this.” Rey gave her a solemn nod and looked away. He bought their crew another round and slid mugs out to everyone. He had to keep their eyes off their captain, who vanished into the bathroom. “Hello?” Galia coughed as soon as the door shut behind her. No response. She locked the bathroom door and latched herself in a stall.
Galia hardly got the tiny tin bottle out of her pocket before the coughs brought her to her knees. The word taxotrol was etched in its side. She leaned over the toilet as the spasms turned into wheezes. Her fingers tightened and burned, almost useless. Hot irons poked through her veins, sprouting out further from her lungs with each hoarse cough. Galia twisted the lid off her bottle and shook out two glossy purple capsules. Her shaky hand flattened across her lips. The high-dosage painkillers tumbled down her throat. They couldn’t dissolve fast enough.
Galia dropped the bottle, then her shoulders. Her chest flinched against the tile floor with each hard cough. Her fingers fumbled through the pills all around her. She clenched an indiscriminate handful more and tossed them into her numb mouth. Blood and thoughts ballooned up to the top of Galia’s skull. Darkness swirled around the edges of her vision, but she wasn’t afraid. This was hardly the first time things had gotten this far - she’d be back on her feet before anyone else had to use the bathroom.
“Unbelievable,” Deidra muttered to the tiny TV screen in the storeroom of the Forge. She, of course, was talking about the recap of the roster announcement containing the Brazen, and her picture, not the transformation her home was about to undergo.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight… but you better believe it before you get out there,” said Clarabelle. She laid a calloused but gentle hand on Deidra’s back. She had no idea of the strings Clarabelle pulled to get their crew in the roster, despite their ridiculous survival rating. She knew, better than any Gold Standard mathematician that those kids had something no algorithm could quantify. Hurt. Drive. Grit. “Believe it, Deidra. And go buckle down, would you? We’re about to leave.” said Clarabelle.
The floorboards shook. Window panes rattled, at least until their magnetic protector plates tightened. Clay crumbled away from the steel deck around the outside of the Forge, before it split into four pieces and folded beneath the building. A panel of light disks emitted invisible heat to lift the bar from Greymoor’s bleak surface. It scorched a rim around the crater where its foundation had dug in. Residents and visitors of Ganera gazed up into the black to watch the neon beacon rise as it did every year. The Forge’s auxiliary wings deployed from its sides. They tilted to point it towards the dark satellite planet, Ares. Its jets flared while Clarabelle buckled herself into the bridge above the bar.
She piloted the Forge and her crew of Gold Standard misfits towards the grounds of the Olympia Gold.
Chapter Six: Prelude
“Ease up, ease up,” Deidra mumbled, more to herself than an actual suggestion.
“Think you’re the one that needs to ease up, DD,” Devin laughed. She could just strangle him. For his attitude, sure, but more for this whole situation. At least I have a comfortable coffin, she thought. She was surprised at the quality of the Brazen, bought with the combined credits of six servants’ glory years. The shining gold trim around the long rectangular windows and propulsion plates marked it for the company that bore the name. Threads of similar color lined the seams of deep scarlet cushions on each seat positioned around the bridge. Deidra sat before controls for one of the Brazen’s long-barreled cannons. Tygon was at the helm.
“I fly a freighter similar to this back and forth from Ares with supplies all day,” he assured Deidra. She scrunched her nose, not entirely convinced. They were on course nonetheless, towards the shadowy satellite planet itself. With its power still cut, it was impossible to make out too much about it. Their destination was at the edge of Ares’ atmosphere. It glittered like a jewel through the Brazen’s reinforced bridge window. It was a place Deidra never dreamed she’d see. The Prelude. From so far away, it barely started to take shape. A mansion to outsize all others, it sat atop a dense, free-floating stony platform. The closer the Brazen flew, the more in focus the place became. There was a deep steel column beneath it. Deidra’s wide eyes wandered from it only when five other pods of light drew streaks across the black. They converged on a single point. The Prelude.
“Are those… the other crews?” Devin muttered.
“I’d bet,” said Tygon. Deidra prayed he could actually see that far, being their pilot. She trained her eyes on the glowing shapes and the growing building until Tygon said, “Brace up guys. We’re entering the normalization zone.”
The contestant entrance was a single-ship bay. Galia figured it was to heighten the suspense for the spectators who could afford a tour inside. She caught a flash of them, with their wine and viewing goggles, lined up on railed walkways every time the bay opened for the next ship. They roared for each crew as Cybil Cerano called out their names from the archway over the entrance. For everyone stuck outside the steel-framed, stacked-stone walls of the Prelude, it was an opportunity to size one another up.
The hatch had already swallowed up the Hammer. It was the blockiest of the ships by far. Its jet-disks were surrounded by thick, slanted steel shields. Iron pegs jutted from around its windows and under its nose. They were fixed to launch and spring back with a piston kick. It was perfectly equipped to ram and launch at anything it touched.
Galia watched Scorch drift towards the opening hatch next. Her thumb slid over the smooth blue switch that jutted up from her holographic input keys. She couldn’t help it, at the thought of Roran. At the thought of how he’d taken so much of her precious taxotrol without so much as a thank you.
“Easy,” Rey said, knowing what that switch could do. The Dreamweaver’s dissolution beam. “You’ll have a chance tomorrow.” Scorch was all flash. Its chrome shields resembled bent leaves that accented its solid gray iron cylinder of a body. Its windows glowed with a reflective amber tint. Galia leaned back to blow a tuft of hair from her face. Her finger fell away from the dissolution switch. He’s not worth it.
“The Torrent!” Cybil boomed over the steady hiss of the crowd inside. Galia watched their ship glide in.
“Now that’s clever,” Galia dissected.
“The diamond-grade skeleton?” asked Rey. Galia nodded. The Torrent was built of softer, lighter duty panels, bound together by thin frames of prismatic metal that even the Dreamweaver’s high-intensity cannons couldn’t break. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they had forceshield projectors, either.”
“Serious contenders, those guys,” Galia announced to the rest of her crew. “Here’s the woman of the hour,” she said, when yet another craft lined up for the entrance bay.
“Of the year,” Rey amended, and he wasn’t wrong. In a way, she was the woman of every year. The ship a mere two hundred feet from the prow of the Dreamweaver was one plastered on posters in a million young dreamers’ rooms, Galia’s once included.
&
nbsp; The Terra Eagle’s ship was shaped precisely like the beast it was named for. It was small, sized for a pilot and two gunners at most. One of its shoulders hosted a massive artillery system. The other was equipped with an aperture-barrel particle cannon. Galia had watched, in one Olympia, the Eagle fire a beam with a diameter of fifteen feet. The wings of her bronzed, beautifully rustic ship stretched out from either shoulder in countless folds of movable feathers. Each one was etched with the true-life detail of its Homeworld raptor counterpart. The cockpit at the center of the craft mirrored an Eagle’s outstretched beak, complete with pecking capabilities. In place of two eyes, a visor of windows, just like the one on her helmet, gave the Terra Eagle a perfect view of her competition. Galia shuddered at the sight of her trademark exosuit through the glass. A deep green, V-shaped analysis screen glared through her metallic black helmet. A neon yellow line flicked up and down it to scan her surroundings. Cybil announced the Terra Eagle with all the bravado she was due. She vanished inside.
That left only the Dreamweaver, the Brazen and Daniel’s ship outside the Prelude. The Brazen went in next. It was a decent ship in look and design, which surprised Galia to no end. She hardly believed six servants were being allowed to compete in the competition they slaved under. That The Gold Standard would grace them with so fine a vessel, solid rectangular build, equipped with several turrets and bomb-launchers, was something else. Still, the crowd roared when they entered the bay. Everyone loves an underdog, Galia figured. But then, she guessed, it might be the booze, too.
“Next… the Dreamweaver, captained by Galia Hattel!” Cybil’s voice blasted from inside the Prelude. The low thunderclap of cheer leaked out into the space around the estate.
“What are you waiting for, Cap’?” Rey slapped Galia’s arm. She wasn’t frozen, like she seemed. She soaked in every second. The silver framework between gigantic stone blocks that made up the Prelude. The bright cones of accent light over high, sapphire window panes. The shadows that drifted through them; the most powerful investors that could afford a meet-and-greet with this year’s Olympia Gold combatants. One of them might even have been Koslav himself.
“Just enjoying the moment.” Galia took the navigation bars of the Dreamweaver in both hands and urged the ship forward. She grinned from ear to ear. The Dreamweaver glided into the entrance bay. She let the applause wash over her.
“Combatants, this way!” a Gold Standard attendant screamed over the roar of applause. He waved two arms to call the eyes of bewildered participants like Deidra. The rest of her crew wandered between two velvet ropes that marked a path through spectators. “Up the stairs! Meet-and-greet and hors d’oeuvres are on the third floor!” When he saw Deidra linger by the exit ramp of the Brazen, Devin reached back to tug her sleeve.
“That’s Galia’s ship, isn’t it?” she mumbled.
“The Dreamweaver, yeah,” Devin said, “Come on, we’ve got to go.” Deidra couldn’t tear her eyes from it. Its shell was jet black, with as many curves as a stormy ocean. In place of whitecaps, its edges were bright silver lines of reflective steel. Every beam of light that struck the ship’s sleek frame bounced back doubly bright.
“And our last ship. The single combatant, Daniel!” Cybil announced as the Dreamweaver docked beside the Brazen. Deidra stole one long look at his unnamed craft. Its edges were even more curved than the Dreamweaver’s, with gold spirals set in its shell. Its prow jutted like a solid gold rapier from the rest of its smooth exterior.
“Come, on,” Devin yanked, when their crew headed up the stairs.
“Oh, alright,” Deidra surrendered at last. She fell in line behind Tygon, Devin and the rest of the Brazen’s crew. They filed between the velvet ropes, up three flights of stairs. The roar of the audience quieted with each step until it fell completely away.
Deidra stepped through a doorway under a sign that read The Game Room. Its dark emerald carpets, accented by golden thread, were lit by honey-colored lanterns on the wall. The bodies crammed from wall-to-wall were defined as spectator or combatant by their clothes. Suits and long, high-slit dresses marked endless gaggles of tipsy, wealthy audience members. Some of them were investors or research benefactors. Others were grandstanders that dreamed of one day standing on par with Koslav Gold. They were here to hurl fistfuls of money at the stars for dominance. Speckled throughout the room were rugged faces, muscular frames, tattered clothes. Crew members set to war for the Olympia Gold Medal mixed in, like an interactive display. The last thing Deidra wanted was to be a part of it, to be ogled. Come see the servant girl! Here today, dead tomorrow? she imagined a label for her might read.
“Come on,” Tygon urged, “Let’s play nice.”
“Hmm… no,” Deidra crossed her arms over her freshly cleaned uniform. Her dark coat flicked out behind her, as she forded through the noise and motion. Devin, Tygon and the others could grin and laugh along with trillionaires just fine. Deidra waited until they were distracted by the act to break completely away. She opted out of meet-and-greeting by skimming the holographic displays that lined the edge of the Game Room. With the intoxication of mingling spectator with combatant and the glowing liquor glasses, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was the only one enjoying them.
The Prelude was, Deidra saw now, more of a museum than an estate. Knee-high carved stone podiums projected three-dimensional images of whatever was engraved on their base plaques. In just ten minutes, Deidra read the entire condensed history of the Olympia Gold.
Not many people remembered the truth in Koslav’s announcement the day before. According to the shimmering illustration of two happy young men before Deidra now, the Olympia Gold had, in fact, begun as a way to raise money for research. Research for Koslav’s younger brother. He was a pilot for the World Biologics Organization. He flew missions to some of the farthest-flung colonies, even planets where colonies hadn’t been established yet. Like hundreds of other young hopefuls that joined the WBO, he’d gone places where life defied all definition of what it was on the Homeworld. Unlike most, though, he suffered an injury at the jaws of one of these beasts and lived to tell the tale. For a while, anyway. Koslav had collaborated with the WBO and wealthy investors to put together a way to raise money to research a cure. More than fifty years later, his brother had gone. His fundraiser not only remained but had become the most expensive, extravagant display of tech and violence in all the settled galaxies. All under the guise of a continued quest for knowledge.
Deidra moved to the next stone podium. The Gold Standard still maintained cooperation with the WBO. Their donations of specimens from colonies and undeveloped planets were as much for entertainment as they were for research. Many arenas from previous Olympias were designed to mimic the living conditions of these outlandish specimens. There were finned quadrupeds that sifted through sediment as easily as water. There were tiny serpents specialized in invading the bodies of larger creatures, to consume them from the inside. There were beasts that entrapped the mind of anything they met eyes with. Deidra wondered if she’d see anything of the like in her own Olympia stint.
However long it lasts, she tried not to think.
“There she is!” filled the air around Galia in whispers. She stepped through the doorway to the Game Room. The lantern-light inside sparkled up and down her wild curves in the endless rhinestones of her black dress. Her thighs rippled with each proud step into the room. With her crooked smirk and crimped hair, she even humored the idea that they were talking about her. Then she caught the glint of the black helmet on the other side of a huge crowd. Of course. The Terra Eagle.
“There she is,” Galia sighed to herself. The Eagle’s yellow scanner line ran up and down her visor as she nodded to one spectator, then the next.
“I heard she has some sort of mutation,” someone whispered, on the topic of why the Eagle never appeared outside her black and fluorescent green exosuit.
“No, it’s a special bio-link to her ship. She controls it remotely with her thoughts!” anoth
er attested. Galia reached for a glowing violet glass of sweet tonic from a passing waiter. She sipped away the unscratchable itch to grab taxotrol from her pocket while she listened in on rumors she’d heard before. Among countless legends from the speculative stardust, there came one she wasn’t familiar with.
“Did you know she enters the Olympia every year to honor her friend who died in it?” Galia turned an ear to listen in on that one, until she caught the eye of someone she recognized. Someone who recognized her. Deidra.
The Gold Standard servant was enthralled instantly by Galia’s dazzling dress. She couldn’t look away. There was only a single thing different about Deidra, but it was enough for Galia to forget about eavesdropping. She was clean. Deidra’s freckles were dotted across a smooth, dark face. Her hair was oily, but in a natural way that came from a hot shower. It frizzed down on either side of her soft, yet somehow crisp gaze. Her uniform was spotless. She was clean. That was all it took for Galia to see what she missed before. Deidra was gorgeous.
“I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when I saw you on that screen,” said Galia. She waltzed across the deep green carpet to the girl.
“Pretty Brazen, huh?” Deidra chuckled ironically. Galia pulled her chin back, arms crossed to test her.
“That is not how you guys got your name,” she laughed.
“Came with the ship,” Deidra assured her. Galia shook her head at The Gold Standard’s cruel humor.
“Don’t suppose entering was your idea,” she said. Deidra opened her lips to answer, but the voice that followed was that of a young man.
“That was all me,” Devin injected himself between them.
“Should have known. The showman,” Galia laughed.
“In the interest of potential alliances, I’ll choose to take that as a compliment,” Devin gave Galia a half-bow.
“Sure,” Galia leaned over his shoulder to whisper, loud enough for Deidra to overhear, “Just don’t forget the people who stand by you.”
