“How are your social, strength, and defense stats even calculated?”
“It’s an estimate pulled by A.I., based on a number of factors and looking at past participants and how related those same factors were. Your actions play into it, though.”
“What about bid screens?” Pierce asked. “Can you just check your AUG-I, send out an ad that you’re taking bids?”
“You can post what you’re willing to do, but the bid screens aren’t under your control,” Dregg answered. “They pop up when a viewer makes a bid and float off to the side. It’s annoying as hell, but it’s how you get credits fast, and can be the difference between winning that next fight or dying.”
The huge man began to exit his secret chamber, gesturing for Pierce to follow. “So, when do we launch?” he asked.
“I need to check in with my superiors,” Pierce replied. “Settle a few affairs at home. Once that’s done, we’ll take off. Good with you?”
“The sooner I get to kill someone, the better,” Dregg grumbled as they stepped back through the simulated fire.
5
The March
Planet Kill, On the Run: Four Days Until Reckoning
The march through the night left her squad exhausted, but not one of them complained. They knew better than that by now. She almost dreaded the incoming recruits, because it was always such a pain to teach Noobs how to behave. If they wanted to live, it was about being part of a team, a team that allowed no error, no signs of weakness.
Her current followers though? They had bloodlust in their eyes. When they thought about how tired or hungry they were, it meant one thing—kill their enemy as fast as possible, so that they could eat something and then get to sleep.
She felt it too, the gnawing at her gut, the clenching and unclenching of her fists. She cracked her neck, eyeing the fortress ahead of them, debating the best way to attack based on where she guessed Fireshot might have positioned his people.
A cool breeze caused one of the newer women to shiver. Letha hadn’t bothered to learn her name yet, because she wasn’t sure this one would survive long. Once they’d been with her long enough, they got names, and their old ones were to be forgotten anyway. Leave the past in the past. Goosebumps showed on the woman’s skin in the moonlight, reminding Letha how glad she was to not feel the cold anymore. In those first months, when Mantis had insisted on showing skin in spite of the weather, she’d thought she would die of hypothermia or sunstroke. Neither had happened, though, and she’d practically forgotten all about it.
The woman glanced back and offered a nervous smile. Hopeful? She’d likely heard of Letha, known that if you got into her bed it meant you were one of the trusted few, likely to live longer than the rest who had her on their side.
Not yet, though, Letha thought. You gotta earn this puntang, girl.
Turning her attention back to her surroundings, she found a spot to piss. Never go into a fight without taking a piss, if possible. Too many of her comrades had died in their own piss and shit, and she intended to never let that happen to her. When she was done, she hiked up her shorts, found one of the Warden-issued energy bars—a luxury she had long ago decided was worth paying for—and ensured her team was eating while she analyzed the situation.
Green waves of light rose through the sky on the horizon, turning to purple the higher they rose. It had something to do with the makeup of the atmosphere, and how the light from the binary star system hit it during the day. It was all mind-boggling how the environment worked, but the point that mattered in Letha’s mind was that they were far enough away from the stars that the planet didn’t suffer from fatal heat waves.
It got hot at times, but nothing like Abaddon, the next planet over. That was where prisoners were sent, those meant for far worse fates than Planet Kill. Sometimes prisoners would get dropped off on Planet Kill, especially when the Warden became aware of a particularly nasty or attractive inmate destined for Abaddon. They paid extra to get the real nasty works here, which explained the presence of Pete’s Dragon.
She didn’t envy the ugly or the boring prisoners, those who continued on to Abaddon. Most died from the heat almost immediately, others would find shelter and fight it out in a similar way to that of Planet Kill, but it wasn’t as exciting to watch—and was only available to high-paying subscribers.
That was another reason to keep up the show here: if any of the competitors proved to be boring but still managed to stay alive, they risked the Warden exporting them for the slaughter. They’d be sent to Abaddon for a sure death sentence. All but that elusive character, Sweeney, that the Warden had stopped looking for long ago.
This was a chance for some of Letha’s newer team members to prove themselves. Those like Trunk had nothing to worry about, but this nameless, goose-pimpled girl? At least she was attractive enough to catch a warlord’s eye, otherwise she would have been in trouble.
Eyes roaming the fortress, she took another bite of her energy bar before storing the rest for later.
“What do you see?” Kale said, approaching her from the left, moving at a crouch.
“There and there,” Letha replied, pointing at two rocky outcroppings along the ridge. “He has a group of three over there, but they haven’t seen us. Might even be asleep. That one though,” she gestured toward the one on their right, where a head was clearly silhouetted against the green waves in the sky, “he’s ready to die.”
“One of us can handle it.” Kale put his hand on the sheath of his blade, all too eager to prove himself to his warlord.
She smiled and shook her head. “No, follow close behind. I promised the Dark Mark it’d be just me.”
“And if it’s a trap?”
“Trust me, after the way she moaned and groaned, that bitch isn’t about to turn on me.”
Kale frowned. “I…”
“Say it.”
“You’re talking about the Mark, here, right?”
Letha frowned. “If you’re implying that my bond with her isn’t as strong as Fireshot’s because I don’t have a dick, you’ll get to find out how good that strap-on can feel when we get back. Only, for you… I don’t think that would feel so good. Or maybe you’re finally ready to give it a go?”
He shook his head. “We all know that’s Ghost’s thing, not mine.”
They both glanced over at Ghost and chuckled. He shrugged, looking like he was about to creep over, but Letha waved him off.
“The point is, we both know sex isn’t the only thing that keeps them loyal,” Letha said. “She’s with us.”
“Roger that.” His eyes showed no more questions, so she licked her lips and prepared to strike.
“Like I said, stay close.” She considered for a moment, then hissed over to Trunk. She was glad to see he still had his loincloth on, for now, and was equipped with his bow and arrows. “You got any arrows in there that don’t explode?”
“What’s the fun in that?” He smiled like the cocky bastard he was.
“Stealth.”
“Ah.” He took out an arrow, detached the end section of it, and carefully moved a couple wires before putting it back in the quiver without the arrow. “Now we have stealth.”
It would do.
“Watch me,” she commanded. “If I turn back and wave my hand, take him out. Otherwise, I’ll deal with it.”
“You sure you don’t want me to just blow him up? You know that old Earth song, from the twentieth century, I think it was? I’ve always been partial to pretending it meant literally raining men. I mean, like actual pieces of—”
“We all know what the fuck you mean,” Kale said, glaring. Even though Letha favored him and the other two generals, he always seemed pissed at Trunk. Jealous, as if his own trunk didn’t stack up—but damn, could he wield it like the best of them. How petty, Letha thought with a shake of her head.
“Get in position,” she told Trunk, getting in front of any sort of argument that might result in the big guy getting killed by her general.<
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Trunk nodded and ambled off to find a good vantage point, while Letha gave her general a stern glance before she left.
The ground was mostly rock, so it was easy to avoid the patches of fallen leaves and bushes that might make sounds and give her away. She took her hip blaster in her right hand, ready for action. This wasn’t the time for loud bursts from her rifle or the brilliance of the electricity that bit her opponents from her shocker. No, it was time for silent movement and stealthy deaths.
If the man ahead was with Fireshot, he was likely at the bottom of the barrel, mere trash who would mess someone up for pleasure, and do worse to women like Letha if given the chance. Especially if a Warden wasn’t around and cameras weren’t watching. Rape was rare here. Not only because it was against the rules, but also because it was hard to do anything without the cameras watching. That said, it happened. At least when it did, the Warden had no problem letting the wrongdoer be punished and tortured in the most gruesome ways—in fact, that sometimes got the most ratings. Many people back home tuned in for the action and sex, less for the splattering of blood or slow, gruesome deaths. But in a situation like a rapist being flayed alive, or fed his own balls? Oh, then they loved to watch with their high-def viewers.
Letha had almost found herself in a situation like that once, but then her man Ghost had shown up. He hadn’t been the one to save her, but he had distracted the man by shouting at him to stop. He’d diverted his attention long enough for Letha to pull the man’s blade and jam it so far up inside of the soft tissue under his jaw that he was dead before he hit the ground.
“That you, Grinder?” the man hissed as Letha drew close.
She knew that name, and the sound of it made her cringe. Grinder was one of the old-timers who had been notorious for crimes committed on Space Station Luxor. They’d transferred her out here instead of Abaddon because of her reputation, and viewership had gone up ten percent that year. The woman had quickly earned herself the reputation of a “grinder,” which meant she killed simply to rise through the levels and get loot. It became her name.
If Grinder was here, perhaps Fireshot was better prepared than she’d originally given him credit for. Letha didn’t want to risk it, so she leaned back against the bottom edge of the outcropping, then turned back and gave a slight wave of her hand. A faint twang, then a thunk and a groan. Over as quickly as that.
She stood to climb over the ledge and spotted another form, one just waking and noticing his fallen companion. Before he could sound an alarm, she was up and over the ledge, leaping for him. Her blaster caught him square on his head, slamming into his ear and sending him sprawling across the rocky ground. Her hand hurt like hell, but she smashed the blaster into him again. A flicker of movement nearby caught her attention—a silent drone, capturing the action for her audience. She couldn’t let them down, and after the price she’d paid to the Dark Mark, she needed the points.
The man below her groaned again as a screen appeared over him, projected from the drone. Not now, Letha thought, clenching her jaw. The viewers didn’t always understand that stealth was occasionally a requirement and that their demands could get her killed.
Glancing at the semi-transparent screen, she saw various bids and requests, organized by two categories. Highest credit bid on the left, highest point bid on the right. A chat window scrolled across the bottom.
The credits came from high-bidding assholes who wanted their heroes to do obscene acts for money. Said money would be transferred instantaneously and used on the black market or with the Warden for bribes, upgraded equipment, and certain favors. Points were for leveling up, and fighters were only allowed to use certain equipment or attack certain individuals if they were of a high enough level. Otherwise, the Warden interfered and reminded them, with pain, why they needed to follow the rules.
Currently the requests ranged from “Forget him, go get your prey,” for ten credits, to “Bite his nose off!” for seventeen, to “Piss in his mouth and then sew it shut,” for seventy-five. As if she had anything to sew with in this wasteland, sick fucks. Right at the top, though, blinking red at two hundred credits, was, “Turn him over, jam your gun up his ass, and then unload.” No way in hell she was doing that. The points window showed normal point systems, like risking letting him live for a few points—because that added danger, and danger was exciting—or sawing off his head for more. Ending it swiftly, annoyingly, wasn’t worth a lot of points, though she saw on her counter that she’d already received ten for her stealth strike. Trunk would’ve gotten more for his shot that took out the other man undetected. He would’ve earned less if this guy had noticed and been allowed to sound the alarm.
The chat window was going nuts, telling her she was a coward if she didn’t go for the two hundred, while others said that was disgusting and begged her to hide before she was seen. As hard as simply surviving was, sometimes pleasing the fans felt like the real challenge.
“You want a show?” she hissed at the camera, then scrolled down the list to a simple “Show us your tits,” and “Use your blaster like a cock and jam it in his mouth before blowing off his head.” She was a performer after all, planning to earn her place among the elite, and secondary to that, to have her revenge. She knew where to draw the line, but had to get as many points and credits as she could as fast as possible. This combination would get her one hundred fifty credits, plus an extra ten points.
Letha put on her best seductive smile, unlaced her front, and let her breasts feel the early morning air. As quickly as that, her nipples perked up with the cold and she breathed deeply, letting her breasts rise and fall for the camera. Then she took her blaster, held it like she would a strap-on, and shoved it into the semi-conscious man’s mouth.
With another groan, he looked up, saw the screen, and his eyes went wide with panic—right before she pulled the trigger.
BAM! A hole sizzled through the guy’s head. Her points jumped up, only forty away from level twenty-five, and her credits shot up as expected. That only gave her two hundred, but she was well-stocked and hoped to hell her investment with the Dark Mark was about to pay off.
That is, if she hadn’t just given her position away. Letha could imagine her crew back there glaring, knowing she was ramping up her credits and points when she needed to be moving on. It wasn’t every kill that the people back home commented on, though, so she felt it was worth taking advantage of the opportunity.
As the message boards exploded with lewd comments and excited youngsters babbling about her flawless tits, she turned from the camera and dashed over to the shadows, deftly using her free hand to tie up her shirt so that her breasts weren’t exposed. It was a sort of hell she’d gotten used to, one she knew how to work well enough. When in Rome, she’d stoke the flames until it burned to the ground.
Now she needed to focus and clear that sick image from her mind. She heard the sounds of footsteps and hushed voices. As jaded as she was, she could never quite do what they asked of her and just move on after. As determined as she was, she still had a damn conscience. At least she hadn’t done the two hundred credit bid—she had rules, after all. She wouldn’t violate someone, at least, not without their permission. Sticking a gun up someone’s ass clearly broke that rule. The mouth thing… she could live with, even though it did make her feel dirty. Showing her breasts was almost like flipping them the bird at this point. No one could last here five years and still think nudity mattered in the slightest, not in the grand scheme of it all.
The voices grew closer and stopped. She waited, knowing that at any minute at least two people, maybe more, would come around that corner and see the body. If they won, that same screen might pop up and demand they do unspeakable things to her, and they might not have the same moral compass she had. Although certain things were against the rules and would be punished, it was entirely possible, and maybe even likely that they’d do it and get their credits first.
Part of her wondered if the Warden even enjoyed letting
it happen from time to time, especially to those competitors who had managed to piss him off.
One shadow, then another. She crouched, wondering if she should have brought more of her team. Mantis had spent over a year teaching her how to fight, how to kill with speed and stealth, but that didn’t mean she was invincible. She had to be tricky, relying on her skills and equipment.
The last time she’d entered the fortress had been a few months back. She’d been on the attack and the Dark Mark had been an enemy. That assault had resulted in a stalemate, so recent advancements in their relationship had come as quite welcome. Her little romp with the Dark Mark had been at a neutral location, a small hut in a valley between the two bases, often used for negotiations. In a sense, that was a negotiation—the most fun kind.
Unfortunately, Letha’s mind was somewhat foggy regarding the layout of the fortress. She’d have to rely on instinct. As she backed into the shadows, something clicked. At first her mind raced with images of her lithe, fit, young body exploding right there and it all being over. If she’d stepped on a mine, she didn’t know of any ways to get out of there alive. But when she felt the wall shift slightly, she realized it wasn’t a mine at all, but a trapdoor.
She smiled, pushing harder against it and stepping back as the wall rotated. Sure, the alarm would be raised any second, but she didn’t need much time at all. The secret opening led her into a bunker where the other figures she’d seen were indeed asleep. Nobody moved, other than a guy taking care of his morning wood.
Loud voices sounded through the walls, then a shout, so she began her assault. Her team would charge in as soon as the alarm went off, but she wanted to be done with Fireshot before that happened. She burst through the opening in the back of the bunker, made for the makeshift hut at the back left of the fortress, and darted in, ready to end it.
Planet Kill Page 5
