by Scott Sigler
Chai said nothing, which, considering his current position was the closest he could come to shrugging nonchalantly. He hadn’t been playing with Brocka at all. In fact it had been one of the scariest shucking moments in Chai’s career. He’d flashed back to that bar fight, to the kind of pain Brocka could dish out, and had wondered — just for a second — if Brocka was going to hand out a repeat performance.
Those fears hadn’t lasted. The game plan has been too perfect. The training, too perfect. A broken wrist didn’t matter if you took your opponent out in the first round.
“How’s his knee?” Marcus asked the younger Klar brother.
“Well,” Bennett said, “he managed to crack the diamond plate, and the hydraulics in his calf are shot to hell, but that doesn’t really matter. I was gonna take all of it out after this fight, anyway. He doesn’t need the weight slowing him down.”
“Yeah, he’s slow enough already,” Marcus said, looking at Chai.
“Shuck yourself, old man.”
“The only problem,” Bennett continued, “is that when the hydraulics crapped out, it sent a power surge to the controller servos in his joints. I’m probably going to have to rewire the whole setup.”
“Worth it,” Chai said.
“Strategy won that fight, kid,” Marcus told him. “Not fancy hardware or flashy banging.”
“They helped,” the Klar brothers said in unison, one of the rare occasions upon which they agreed.
Chai didn’t say anything. Instead he picked up the top of his skull from where it rested in a steel basin beside the bio-rack. His blond hair had been shaved into another basin next to it.
Chai’s fingertip traced the faint lines that spider-webbed the interior of his skull, remnants of cracks long since healed. The jumping attack of a Sklorno fighter had smashed it to bits. That was Chai’s first professional match against a non-Human. He almost laughed now when he thought about what a complete disaster that had been. After the Sklorno hell-stormed his crown from 20 feet in the air and shattered his skull, Chai went down. The Sklorno took to the air again with every intention of sending Chai to meet the High One. But at the last second, Chai up-kicked. It was the worst possible defensive move he could’ve made, as the Sklorno broke both of his legs in half in a dozen places, but it saved his life. Thankfully his corner threw in the towel a second later.
That was before Marcus.
“Shuck me, Chai,” Jorgie said. “I’m going to have to scoop your whole damn brain out to fix this.”
“Whine, whine, whine,” his brother taunted.
“Will both of you shut up for a minute?” Chai was suddenly focused on the holoscreen. On Battleverse, they were replaying his post-fight interview. The interviewer asked him how it felt to be the new GFA champion, and in the same breath, asked if Chai thought the commission would strip the title. The Heretic had answered as only he could.
“Crowns don’t make kings,” his own face said in the holotank. “And titles don’t make champions. There’s only one fighter left in the ‘verse I have to meet in this ring to prove that The Heretic reigns supreme. My challenge is to Korak the Cutter.”
“But there’s wide speculation he’s retiring,” the commentator said. “Shouldn’t you be more focused on whether or not you’ll keep your GFA title, not trying to unify the belts?”
“I don’t care about belts,” the holoheretic said. “If Korak has anything under that turtle shell besides slowly rotting meat, he’ll accept my challenge. He’s not undefeated, not really, not while I’m standing here. If he retires without fighting me, then his record has one loss. A loss that brings disgrace on all of his worthless, satanic people.”
The screen vanished. Marcus had turned it off. “Why do you say that crap? You don’t even believe what you’re saying.”
“If it gets him in the ring, it doesn’t matter what I believe.”
Bennett stood, brushing his hands off in his familiar all-done motion. “You think Korak will accept?”
“No,” Chai said. “A part of him has to know what’ll happen if he does. You saw the Wheeler fight. Korak barely got out of that alive, and he knows it. He’s finished. Besides, the IFA and the GFA will never let it happen. Whichever champion loses the fight loses face for that promotion. No one-night payday is worth that to them. That’s why they don’t cross-promote fights.”
“You never know, kid,” Marcus said in a way that made Chai think the old man did know and just wasn’t telling him. “My pop always said be careful what you wish for.”
“Yeah? Mine said I’d burn in the thirteen lakes of fire if I ever told anyone about walking in on him nailin’ that fifteen-year-old acolyte when I was six.”
“Point being?”
“Fathers lie.”
“Maybe,” Marcus said. “But coaches don’t. Korak didn’t get where he is by being stupid. If you underestimate a forty-six-and-oh record, underestimate a Warrior like that, even an old one, then I’ve taught you nothing.”
Chai couldn’t turn his head. Marcus was some disembodied voice off to his left. A disembodied voice chattering nonsense. But that was Marcus’s job, to chatter nonsense, to worry about things like that.
Chai didn’t worry. He could have beaten Korak in his prime, let alone the washed-up old lobster that now crawled around the ring. And while Chai suspected the fight would never happen, he could always hope.
Hope that Korak would take one more fight.
Just one more.
Round Three: Vikor the Black
“You’re not taking this fight. That is the final word.”
Vikor the Black spoke with all the natural authority of a Quyth Leader. That was the irony of the Quyth culture, that when a tiny, frail Leader spoke, the hulking death machines known as Warriors quivered. And sometimes that was literal, as in quivered visibly. Genetic manipulation. Such a wonderful thing, especially if you were at the top of the ladder.
They stood in the trophy room of Vikor’s gym. To English-speaking ears, the gym’s real name was a string of gibberish that loosely translated to Black Power. Some of the Humans thought that was funny, but Vikor had never really understood why.
Small spotlights lit up trophies, belts, medals and cups won at fighting tournaments all over the galaxy. No matter the fighter’s stature, the gym kept these mementos of victory. Glory for a single fighter was really glory for the gym, and when the fighter died either in the Octagon or for other, less glorious reasons, his memory lived on in this room.
“Do you understand me?” Vikor said.
Korak the Cutter wouldn’t meet Vikor’s gaze. Instead, he looked down at the thing held in his lower arms. The big Warrior stood still and tall, chitin lined with the scars of fifty fights, dozens of battles and a little muscle work for the mob. Pedipalps hung motionless at the sides of his head.
The lower arms held his heavyweight belt. When he spoke, his deep bass voice drew a curious counterpart to his Leader’s thin bark.
“You want me to give this up, Shamakath?”
The term, respectful. The tone? Insolent.
But that was what you wanted in a fighter. That’s what you cultivated. The smart ones, you trained them to be just a little insubordinate. Subconscious training, like so much of the instruction given to the Warriors.
Most of the brutish creatures, you wanted them to blindly follow orders. Warriors are expendable, after all — they are soldiers, born to fight, born to die. They had already failed the prenatal leadership tests. Had they passed those tests, well, then they wouldn’t have been fed the retrogene formula that turned them into walking monsters, that made them so receptive to the commands of the Leaders.
Some, however, didn’t fail those tests by much. Just a little, and many, many times, the pass/fail decision was somewhat arbitrary. Quite frankly, the Quyth Nation needed decision makers who could also fight on the front lines. Battlefield commanders, beings that could tear an arm off one second and make a spur-of-the-moment initiative call the next, s
end their company on the attack or see a hopeless situation and rally into a defensive posture to conserve resources and mitigate loss. Quyth Leaders had learned centuries ago that you couldn’t make all military decisions from an armored bunker miles away from the action.
Sometimes, the beings that did the killing had to make the call.
Those were your sergeants, even some lieutenants. Beings that had the hulking mass of a Warrior but were almost smart enough to be a Leader. Beings like Korak the Cutter.
Those beings you trained to be a touch insubordinate, to allow them the illusion that they could think for themselves. You trained them that way so when you told them they were a failure, they pressed on. So when you told them they had lost, they kept fighting.
So when you told them it was over, they dug deep and persevered.
But, unfortunately, when it really was over, these Warrior-Leaders were the last to figure it out.
“Your time has come, Korak. You are undefeated. You retire undefeated. You retire a legend. You retire an icon for your species.”
Now Korak looked up, his softball-sized eye showing a wash of colors that betrayed his emotion: the black of rage, the deep orange of betrayal and a touch — just a touch — of the crimson that represented fear.
“I’m undefeated in record only,” Korak said. “The Human called me out.”
Called me out. The phrase of an individual responding to another individual. A Human phrase, a Human sentiment. More of the cultural pollution brought through this constant mixing of the species. Quyth were hardwired to adapt to any environment, to take in all environmental factors and create constantly improving formulas for success. Their cultural adaptations were no different. The Human cultures, driven by sports like MMA and rugby and the style of football known as American, those cultures had already shifted the Quyth outlook so much it was impossible to remember a time without them.
Chaiyal “The Heretic” North embodied those Human cultures perhaps better than any single sentient. The first Human who Quyth Leaders and Warriors alike actually rooted for. The son of a Purist holy man, the son of a primitive supernatural belief system that openly sought war and the destruction of all who saw the galaxy in a different way. Chaiyal had abandoned that culture for a new one, for the code of the warrior, for the call of solo battle. When he had discovered that the person he was wasn’t good enough to win, to become champion, he changed everything about himself — attitude, style, his body, his thoughts. Other Humans fought, other Humans modded up, other Humans won, but those sentients added layers to an existing core. That was merely adaptation. The Heretic changed everything. The old sentient he had been was dead, and in his modded shell stood an entirely new being. Death and rebirth in the same body.
The Quyth sensed that in Chaiyal, sensed his ability to abandon what was and force complete change. If there was an analogy for the Quyth culture, for the reason the Quyth continued to spread across the galaxy faster than any other race, that analogy was ironically a Human — Chaiyal North.
Korak walked to the wall and hung his belt back on its lighted frame. “If I retire now, I have a loss. The worst kind of loss. The loss of pride.”
Damn this stubborn Warrior. It was time to stop, time to rest. “I will tell you when to be proud. Do you forget your place?”
Korak looked down at Vikor for a moment, then back at the belt. Red, white and blue ribbon material held up the gleaming platinum oval decorated in its center with diamond letters that spelled out IFA. Hammered and tooled letters around the oval’s top curve spelled out Intergalactic Fighting Association and along the bottom curve, Heavyweight Champion.
The small spotlights reflected off the thousands of diamond facets, those sharp, small reflections playing off Korak’s cornea.
“If he wants the belt,” Korak said, “then he has to take it. Take it from me.”
Vikor had to control this situation, and fast. Korak was the greatest of all time, but that time had passed. Nothing but experience, a cheap shot and some luck brought him the win against Mark “The Mangler” Wheeler. If the fight had been decided on pure skill and strength, if it had been a fair fight, Wheeler would now be the champ.
And for all of Wheeler’s speed and skill and strength, he wouldn’t last a single round against The Heretic.
“You have forty-six wins and zero losses,” Vikor said. “The greatest record in the history of the IFA, in the history of interspecies fighting. You will retire and do so now. You will leave the sport with honor, bringing honor upon this gym. That is what you will do.”
Korak took another step toward the belt, his left pedipalp reaching out to stroke the red, white and blue band. “And then what? What do I do then, Shamakath?”
“You can help me train others.” What a stupid question. Beings would pay everything they had to train under Vikor the Black and his greatest warrior, Korak the Cutter. Korak’s life would be a life of pride, of making new fighters, of watching them embrace the battle.
“I’m not a trainer,” Korak said.
“It has to end sometime. Nobody fights forever.”
Korak nodded. Another maddeningly Human trait. “That’s right. Some Warriors give it all. Like Brocka the Razor-Barbed.”
“Brocka died, you idiot. I don’t ...
Vikor stopped, the words trailing off. I don’t want you to die, he had almost said. That was ridiculous. Why would he say that to a lowly Warrior? This wasn’t about emotions for a lesser being; this was about business. Korak the Cutter — alive — was worth far more to Black Power than Korak the Cutter, dead.
This Warrior wasn’t obeying, and Vikor the Black had had enough. “Do you know why Brocka died?”
Korak said nothing.
“You already know. You were at the fight. Because your limited intellect is clearly offline, I will say it out loud to make sure there is no confusion. Brocka the Razor-Barbed died because he shouldn’t have been in the ring with Chaiyal North.”
“The Heretic is just a Human. I will not back down from a Human, I will not shame my species like that.”
“The Heretic isn’t just a Human, he is the best. Do you hear me? The best. Do I need to run a holo of the Brocka fight for you?”
“Brocka was old.”
“You are old!”
“No, that’s not—”
“Enough! You are not the fighter you once were, and even in your prime ... The words slipped out before Vikor could control them. This fool of a Warrior had enraged him, made him lose his temper.
Korak looked away from the belt, the tiny diamond reflections sliding left along the curve of his cornea until they vanished. The champion stared down at Vikor.
“Shamakath. Are you saying that even ... even in my prime, I could not have beaten this Human?”
Vikor started to speak, then stopped. It was too late. He knew it. The Warrior’s game was the fight, the battle, the physical realm. The Leader’s game was the mind, thoughts, emotions, manipulation ... and Vikor had played his game poorly.
“I will fight The Heretic,” Korak said. “Train me for this fight. This last fight.”
“No. I forbid it. You will not fight him, you will not fight again, you will join me in my gym, and that is final.”
“I will fight.”
“You will not fight! I am your Shamakath!”
Korak reached out his left middle arm. He did it slow, nonthreateningly, and placed his hand on Vikor’s middle shoulder.
“Following your will has been my life. Without you, I’d still just be muscle for Gredok the Splithead. I’d probably be dead already. But you are not my Leader, you haven’t been for a long time. My Shamakath is the Octagon. I go where it tells me to go, fight when it tells me to fight. That is my life. And now, it tells me to fight The Heretic.”
Vikor had one last play, one last, desperate play to make to stop this certain suicide. “And what if I cast you out? What if I throw you out of my gym, renounce my domain over you, what then?”
; Korak’s pedipalp slipped away to once again hang motionless at his side. His eye flooded with the rusty orange of betrayal.
“Then ... then I will fight as a ronin.”
A ronin. A masterless Warrior. A position of great shame. And yet Korak would do that in order to fight The Heretic, in order to court certain defeat and a probable death.
A little bit insubordinate? Perhaps Korak the Cutter should have never been fed the retrogene formula so long ago. No matter what Vikor did, Korak was going to step into the Octagon. Or perhaps the ring; with two champions from two competing fight promotions, this was uncharted territory. Either way, Korak and The Heretic would settle this face to face.
Korak the Cutter would go it alone ... and that was something Vikor could not allow to happen.
“I will train you,” he said. “I will train you for this final fight.”
Korak the Cutter, the champion, the most dangerous sentient in the galaxy, dropped to all fours, resting his weight on his middle arms and his legs. This brought him eye level with Vikor, and then the champion did a motion that held the same meaning between both Quyth and Human alike.
He closed his eye and bowed his head. The sign of submission, of fealty.
I submit to you, and only to you.
Vikor reached out and touched the small, armored nubs that were a Warrior’s antenna.
I accept your loyalty.
One more fight. Just one more ...
Round Four: Gredok the Splithead
Chai’s skull itched.
The flesh was as good as new, no scars, not even a hint of the post-fight brain surgery performed on Chaiyal just a week earlier. It was the freshly fused bone beneath that felt like static teeth compulsively grinding. Waiting in the plush antechamber, Chai was ready to dig a trench through his scalp with his fingernails to get at the stinging sensation.
He’d traveled by private frigate to planet Ionath. The Galactic Fight Council was headquartered in the heart of Ionath City. If he wasn’t there on such awful business, Chai might actually be having a good time. He liked Ionath City. It was as far away from both the Purist Nation and the Creterakian Empire as one could travel and still get room service.
