by Kennedy King
“Hey, Eagle!” Galia screamed. The ships stilled to a neutral hover. The Terra Eagle’s gunners stopped jostling the doors to the Dreamweaver’s bridge. The bevelworms calmed at the decrease in activity. Even the audience withheld their monstrous cries to listen. “Proposition for you! We both go on, or neither of us do!” The Terra Eagle made no response, but neither did she stand down. Her beak hung, ready to peck through the last of the Dreamweaver’s cracked shields. Galia could tell, even from a flat yellow line, when her bluff was being called. The Eagle’s mistake was that there was a bluff. “Alright,” Galia’s steel flower blossomed in fire. The Eagle tilted down. Galia had another flower in the other jet before the smoke cleared.
“I yield,” said the Terra Eagle, for the first time. Her gunners loosened on the Dreamweaver’s doors. Deidra relaxed her blistering grip from the navigation bars. The only thing louder than the audience’s screams was Cybil’s.
“Ladies and gentlemen! We’re down to three! The Dreamweaver and Terra Eagle move on in the least eventful tie I’ve ever seen in a one-on-one! Daniel will also move on, with the award of a bonus. That’s two for the Dreamweaver and two for Daniel, folks! May the Torrent rest in peace… in the bellies of the bevelworms.”
Chapter Fifteen: Uncoiling the Rope
“To my pants, which I rightfully soiled a few hours ago,” Ray offered a toast, his glass of rippling gold liquor over his head like a torch, “Never thought we’d make it out of a one-on-one with the Terra Eagle.” It was a sentiment all present could agree on. They all shared the disbelief it was only a few hours ago.
“To your pants!” Galia chimed.
“To your… pants,” Deidra joined in, not half as confident. She knew that after the clink, she’d have to down what was in her glass. Her first sip of liquor, something entirely forbidden to Gold Standard servants. This was precisely why Galia had ordered the top-shelf “Glass of Gold”. Her deepening tab meant nothing between the three left in the Dreamweaver’s crew. If they won the Olympia, it’d be pocket change. If they lost, they were all dead anyway.
Galia, Deidra, and Rey clacked their glasses together. All three of them flinched at the thunderous hurrah! that shook the Forge after the ting. After such a round, everyone had their eyes on the Dreamweaver now. The three tipped back their glasses and enjoyed the hard-fought juice of victory. Well, Galia and Rey did. Deidra, nervous about the audience around her, chugged her whole Glass of Gold. Fire flooded her lungs, and everything attached to them.
“Woah, Deidra, slow-”
Deidra beat her to the bottom of the glass, then slammed it down on the counter. Her hoarse cough was drowned out by a second rumble of “hurrah!” from the spectators that packed the bar wall-to-wall. Galia tried not to laugh too hard and patted the girl on the back.
“Enjoy it while you can. You know what’s coming next,” Clarabelle told her and meant it. Everyone knew. The only consistency between all Olympia Golds: the second to last round, the Reverie. As she passed by, she dropped another round on a platter. At first, Deidra wondered why Clarabelle was torturing her. Then the old barkeep said, “This is from a certain avian friend of yours.” Galia glanced around for the Eagle, though she didn’t expect to find her here, mingling with the masses. She flinched when someone flopped down at the bar beside her.
“What are you doing here?” Deidra flared instantly, fueled in no small part by the Glass of Gold churning inside her. The Terra Eagle let it roll off her mechanically enhanced shoulders. She leaned back on the bar, exosuit arms shimmering green.
“Same as you, I’d wager. Actually, I never bet on anything, after what happened to a certain friend of mine. I’m blowing off steam before the Reverie tomorrow,” the Terra Eagle told her. It was ghastly, to hear a half-computerized voice say something so remarkably human. “There are quite a few teams on the losing side already this year.” Galia counted them behind her closed eyelids. The Torrent, the Hammer, Scorch… the Brazen.... of course, the last team wouldn’t be participating. Their last survivor was still in the games, against all odds. The others, however, were probably at a Gold Standard armory right now, choosing the tools of their revenge for tomorrow.
“You still have the balls to come in here and call my father your friend?” Deidra steamed. She leaned forward in her stool, only to be corralled by the hand of her captain on her chest. The Terra Eagle sighed; a long, uncomfortable digitized note.
“Twenty years is a long time to be confused about what you saw… you were five years old back then. But now, you must know why I knocked Jonas out,” she said. Deidra’s eyes skimmed the bar, for any misplaced booze she could swipe and swallow to escape this situation. After twenty years… did she want to know what she’d missed? Did she care? There was, however, no more liquid confidence available to her. Deidra would have to rely on her own.
“You wanted the bonus for your team. So what happened? Why did the Gold Standard come collect on his debt right then? Why didn’t he make it out of the Thruway? Did you just… hit him too hard?” Deidra unleashed her flood of questions at last. All of the things that haunted nightmares she chose to forget. The Terra Eagle lowered her helmet. Her visor came down. She eyed Deidra sideways with two smoky blue portals through a wasteland of a face. She spoke with her true, raspy voice.
“I wish I knew, Deidra… I went out almost as soon as your dad. When I woke up… I was like this. This exosuit gives me an edge in the Olympia, but that’s secondary to its function as a life support system,” the Eagle told her.
“Oh come on, Kayn,” all heads turned back to face Clarabelle, when she jutted in. Before the Eagle could answer she howled, “Donny! Man the bar a few minutes.” Donny hefted himself from a table in the corner, where he’d drank himself stupid with a few Dreamweaver fans. He freed Clarabelle up to cross her arms and deliver a killing look to the back of the Terra Eagle’s helmet. “You act like you have no idea.”
“If you’re so sure, why don’t you tell them, DeLuce?” the Eagle snapped. She flipped her visor back down. “See you tomorrow.” With this, the Eagle marched from the Forge. Deidra wheeled her barstool around to find Clarabelle with eyes the size of Greymoor.
“DeLuce?” she hissed. It was a name she’d heard more than once, when it crossed her father’s lips. If anything happens to daddy, you’ll stay with DeLuce. She’s like daddy’s sister, so you call her auntie DeLuce, understand? The words ricocheted through Deidra’s mind.
“Don’t look at me like that. Like you don’t know me all of a sudden ‘cause you found out I got a last name, too,” Clarabelle scolded her, “I was supposed to look after you, but… your dad was no fighter, Deidra. I wasn’t about to watch him die from the bleachers after his parents fed me, bathed me, dressed me, like I was his sister. I entered the Olympia with him instead. ”
“So…” Deidra did her best to swallow the fistful of truth Clarabelle had just dumped on her, like it was nothing. “You were there?”
“I was. I… withdrew after the Thruway. Me, Kayn and Jonas were all that was left of our crew. When I saw what happened to Jonas and Kayn, I knew there was only one person left who was gonna do anything to keep you alive. So I withdrew,” Clarabelle told her. Galia, who’d hung on every traded word, slipped her fingers between Deidra’s under the bar without a word.
“You… all these years… you’d known…” Deidra choked.
“Yeah, and I knew it wouldn’t change a damn thing about the boat you’re in. A boat I’ve… been watching for a long time. So it’s still ma’am, and a little respect from you, understand?” Clarabelle’s eyes welled with water. “Until you finish these games and get off of this artificial hell.” Deidra composed herself with a single throat-clear.
“Thank you. Ma’am,” she smiled, “Do you think… you could tell me what happened, to Jonas?”
“I’ll tell you what I told Kayn years ago. What she still refuses to believe. She was maimed by the man who killed Jonas. She went unconscious, and when she woke up, your
dad was gone. She loved him, and she believes she put him down. Kayn hasn’t forgiven herself, since the second she suited up as the Terra Eagle.” said Clarabelle. She inhaled long and deep for the air to bring it all back up. “His name was Yuri. We thought he was down. The man took a solid energy-sledge to the skull. But… he woke up. Just as Kayn knocked out your dad, Yuri woke up. I moved to help, but…”
“What? What did he do?” Deidra couldn’t hold back, when Clarabelle trailed off, hand around the outside of her arm.
“He… grabbed Kayn by the back of the neck. He pinned her to the side of the Thruway, while we all raced down. It was so fast… Yuri held her there until her screams stopped. With all her strength and weapons, she couldn’t fight him. When he was done with her, he floated to Jonas and he just… crushed his throat,” said Clarabelle, eyes swimming with the ghosts of the scene, “Then he moved to the next combatant. I never saw another person act that way. It was like he didn’t even see the people he was killing. Like he didn’t know why. He made his way around the Thruway, while I pretended to be asleep, crushing. Snapping. I pretended to be unconscious.” Deidra was quiet a while before she found it in herself to ask,
“How… did you make it?”
“We reached the other end of the Thruway. The round ended before he got to me,” Clarabelle told her. “Now, this is the part that you three need to worry about.” The sound of three drew Galia and Rey in closer, to listen. “The thing is, you already know Yuri. I had to be sure, before I told you, and now I am.”
“What do you mean?” said Galia.
“Kayn and I have been tracking him, over the years. He enters the Olympia at distant, random intervals, under different aliases. That way, his statistics don’t build up too much. In my research… his combined fatalities are the highest in the Olympia, by double the runner-up. He changes his hair and beard, even his eye color on occasion, but he has two trademarks. You’d never catch it unless you attended most Olympias.” said Clarabelle. A chill infiltrated the blood of the Dreamweaver’s crew all at once.
“Let me guess: one of them’s a pinstripe suit?” Deidra shuddered. Clarabelle nodded.
“The other’s a bite-shaped scar on his neck, under his collar. I caught a glimpse of it the other day, when he was in here, she said.”
“Yuri… Daniel, killed my dad?” Deidra whimpered. The image of his smile from inside the brain-cooking energy helmet emerged from her nightmare fuel.
“And God knows how many others,” said Clarabelle. She reached over the table to grasp Deidra’s other hand. She shot a look to Galia, who was disarmed by her intensity. “Don’t let him take my girl.”
What could Galia do, but nod?
Chapter Sixteen: Reverie
“This is it. We make it through this, and we’re in the running for the Gold Medal,” Rey was the first to find the voice to speak. It had been a sullen, tense ride to the arena of the Reverie. Unlike the other challenges, “arena” wasn’t a word the crew would have picked to describe this battleground. Its serenity was jarring. Aisles upon aisles of mauve crystal towers reached up from a vast, shimmering lake of pink auroras. The Dreamweaver hovered over them now, to the starting line beside the Terra Eagle and Daniel. “You’ll get your freedom,” Rey said to Deidra, then “You’ll get your new… everything,” to Galia.
Deidra only half absorbed his words. She couldn’t stop reading the endless rows of writing inscribed on the crystal towers. From a distance, they were senseless runes. Through the scopes of Deidra’s cannons, however, she could read them plain. The names of those who’d given all for glory in the Olympia Gold, to date. Somewhere in the endless memoriam were names that she knew. Roran. Rex. Devin… Jonas. Deidra was still in disbelief that she believed Clarabelle’s story. Clarabelle DeLuce. Her dad was taken from her, her wrists shackled, by a man two ships over.
“What about you, Rey? What will you do with your winnings?” Deidra posed, if only to kill some of her nerves.
“Hmm… strippers,” Rey said. Galia and Deidra snapped free of their tense trances in hilarity when he went on, “I’m not talking run-of-the-mill, either. I’m talking four-boobs, maybe an extra arm or lizard eyes. The really exotic package. Maybe one with a doctorate, so she can teach me a lesson.”
“Vile,” Galia smirked, “I love it.” But then Rey did something she hadn’t seen him do in years. Not since she weaned him off shooting his own supply. He put his head down. He stared at himself in the perfect mirror of his shiny black boots.
“I’d… try to find Julia. She probably wouldn’t want a damn thing to do with me, but I’d try to find her. Just to know she’s alright,” Rey admitted. Under the drugs, the hypothetical strippers, the reform and violence, he admitted he was still a man. Galia leaned over to snap a firm hand on his shoulder.
“You’re a different man now,” she found it in herself to say. “You only lost her because you thought leaving was the best thing for her.” Rey’s eyes jumped up to her.
“I told you that?”
“You did, once. When you were going through withdrawal,” Galia explained. Rey leaned back in his chair, counting the seconds until Cybil started his announcement. Had he taken just a few seconds less, Rey might not have said another thing about it.
“Doesn’t matter what a father thinks is best, when he leaves,” he muttered, to fill the tense vacuum. Deidra reeled back from the revelation that Rey’s daughter was somewhere, out in the stars above. It was only Galia’s frantic glance that prompted her to speak up.
“She might not forgive you, but… No matter how mad you are at your dad for leaving, it would be better to see him. At least to know why,” said Deidra. She, Galia and Rey shared a long look for the few seconds left to the commencement of the round.
“Here we are, folks. I can’t believe we’ve come this far already,” Cybil’s voice echoed over the crystal lake of the Reverie from his floating podium above. His use of we made Deidra sick, like he’d done a damn thing. Like he’d suffered. “I can’t believe this competition! The renegade single combatant. The crowd favorite Terra Eagle. The dogged and determined Dreamweaver, starring our very own Deidra Benier of The Gold Standard! These three remain in contention for the Gold Medal. But this round is about those left behind as well. The defeated crews. While we tip our hats to those who are no longer with us to participate, we welcome those who are, to do everything they can to bring down the active combatants. We’ve armed them with everything they could want to do so.”
Cybil paused for the survivors of the fallen crews to cry out from the tops of their crystal towers. They were staggered throughout the Reverie crossing, to make for a consistent hell throughout. Amongst the cries for vengeance, Galia picked out one above all else.
“For captain Rex!” the ever-faithful crew of the Hammer blasted into the night sky. Corelia stood at the front, a laser long-blade in both arms.
“The remaining crews need only make it past those they’ve defeated, without being shot down. This is a feat of piloting alone, so weapons are prohibited. The finish line is the far side of the lake. You will notice, however, a strange song if you… just… listen,” Cybil led the audience, floating on bleacher platforms around him. Quiet overtook them, until a whisper of an operatic note arose from the lake. A long string of slithering light shimmered deep beneath its surface “Ah, what a beautiful sound. An Olympia tradition, the singing dirgesnake. She’s here to take care of those who fall in this challenge. Any crew to reach the other side of the lake with their ship intact receives a bonus.” Cybil gave the defeated a moment to load, cock, and otherwise ready their weapons, before he cried out, “Begin!”
“Take us home, G,” Rey patted the back of his captain’s chair.
She jerked the navigation bars down. The Dreamweaver dropped a few feet under the ram of Daniel’s ship. He zipped ahead, the Terra Eagle quick to follow. Crews of the defeated unleashed a barrage of thermal and force cannon blasts to bar them. It rattled the Reverie lake, from the c
rystal towers down to its rosy waters, but Galia couldn’t afford to look. She had her own onslaught to deal with. A particle missile arced out in a spiral of smoke from the tower closest to them. She flipped the Dreamweaver in an identical spiral, to set it off course. The missile crashed into one of the crystal towers, instead. Its burst of blue smoke brought down a rain of violet shards to the ghostly lake.
“More on our left! I don’t think the crews are all together!” Deidra told her, when she noticed a small contingent taking aim.
“Hang tight! We’re diving!” Galia shouted. The Dreamweaver plummeted under arcs of thermal mortars. Their hot bursts lit the sky orange over them. Galia took them down low enough for the hull to skim the waters. The dirgesnake’s song rose up through the Dreamweaver’s frame and the hairs on its crew’s necks. Galia took them back up, only to be blindsided by a blur of motion. It set the Dreamweaver off course a few feet. “What the hell… is that the Terra Eagle?”
“Sure is!” Rey piped back. Galia shook her head and cocked the helm to the side, to bash them back.
“She fell back just to screw us over?” she said.
“Wait!” Rey called out. He saw something on his weapon’s analysis monitor that Galia couldn’t. “She fell back to block us from enemy fire.”
“What?” Deidra blurted. After everything… she’s still trying to protect me?
“You heard me!” Rey shouted back, “She’s the only thing between us and an absolute firestorm right now.”
“We’ll thank her later,” said Galia, “For now, hold on to your assholes!” She jammed back the throttle.
“G, hol-”
