by Cheree Alsop
“Who’s there?”
Fear tightened my throat. I heard him rise to his feet, but I couldn’t move. There was nowhere to go. I was trapped and at the mercy of a gladiator who was known for breaking every bone of his opponent possible before he snapped their neck. Imperious Tasen the Pitiless was what he was called within the halls of the Palladium.
“Answer me,” he said in a low rumble I felt through my small body.
I heard his footsteps draw nearer. I should have found something to use as a weapon, but even at that age I had learned to assess my opponent’s strengths and weaknesses. I came out so far on the short end it would have been laughable it if wasn’t my life on the line.
The curtain was swept aside. A hand grabbed the front of my rough woven shirt and I was lifted into the air. Tasen’s grip twisted to cut off my air as he glared up at me.
“Like what you hear?” he demanded. “I’ll show you what happens to a medio who spies on the Imperious!” His words ended on a strangled note. “I am still the Imperious!” he screamed, “And I’ll show you why I am called the Pitiless!”
He threw me against the wall. I landed on the floor gasping to draw in a breath through my bruised throat. Before I could regain my senses, the gladiator pounced on me like some deranged hunting cat. My head was battered from side to side as he hit me full force. He followed with blows to my ribs and my stomach while his wild laughter filled the air.
“I’ll show you why I am called the Pitiless,” he muttered again when my cries of protest had died into a whimper.
He held up my right hand. “Something to remember me by,” he said.
A snap sounded followed by a jolt of pain like nothing I had experienced before. Another snap sounded before the door slid open. Sir Calladar’s guards thundered in. The startled exclamations at what they found were the last thing I heard before I blacked out.
When I came to, the physician was talking to someone beyond the bed. My eyes were swollen shut and my body was battered to the point that any movement meant pain.
“I give him a week. If he survives that far, he may pull through.”
“I paid good marks for that boy and he’s shown some promise. Do what you can.”
Later the doctor had offered me medicine for the pain. I remembered Sir Calladar’s words and refused.
“If we don’t get the swelling in your brain down, you’re going to suffer from terrible headaches,” he warned.
“I’ll survive,” I had replied.
I blinked and found myself in the quarters assigned to me on the SevenWolf. I had no idea how much time had passed. The coolness of the room eased the pounding in my head somewhat. I realized I was still in my underwear. I crossed to the wall and slid the light sensor up just enough to make out my surroundings. The bottle of pills sat forgotten by the couch. I made a mental note to throw it away once I figured out where the garbage was.
I wandered through the main room to the small hallway beyond. Doors branched off to the right and the left. A check of the door on the right revealed a bathroom complete with a shower. The door to the left led to a bedroom. I paused in the doorway. My chest tightened. I gave a little cough to pretend I wasn’t affected. It was just a room, nothing more.
How long has it been since I had a room of my own?
Since the Bacarian System.
Why does that feel like a dream instead of my life?
You have the scars to prove you survived it.
I clenched and unclenched my jaw before making my way inside. I put a hand on the bed. It wasn’t the usual pullout that was standard issue on these older starships. This one was bolted to the floor but had actual pillows, two thick blankets, and even sheets. It was far too luxurious for a guard purchased from the prison planets. Something felt off. I looked around. The entire situation felt wrong, somehow, like I was being duped but had no idea why.
The ache in my skull reminded me that maybe my suspicions came from the concussion. I had experienced enough of them in my battles to know I couldn’t handle many more, especially of this severity.
I pushed a button on the wall and the door to the closet slid aside. A row of old uniforms was followed by civilian clothes. At least whoever had occupied the room before me had been close to my size. I pushed the uniforms away and rifled through the other options. Unfortunately, the shirts I found wouldn’t fit over my shoulders without tearing. Too much weapons’ training. I gave up and reluctantly pulled out one of the uniforms. It was black with a gold stripe down each arm. If I left the buttons undone, I could get away with wearing one of the black undershirts beneath.
I carried everything to the bathroom and set the pile on the sink. The room was small but serviceable. I could appreciate the privacy after the communal shower situation I had endured for most of my life. At Roan Seven and at the Palladium, showers were a rushed matter of get in, get out, and no lingering if you wanted to avoid the chaos. I had never taken time to enjoy the water.
Yet when I stepped under the warm stream and let it run through my hair, several things slid together at once. The first was that I was safe. Nobody was gunning for me, at least not in the star system where the SevenWolf had jumped. It gave an unfamiliar sort of comfort to know that I didn’t have to watch my back every second of the day. The next thing was that I was a dirty mess. The blood trickled from my forehead and hair to turn the water pink at my feet. The dirt that coated my body from Roan Seven added with it to create a murky compound that made me sick to think of it going through the ship’s liquids’ recycling system.
The final thing that lingered in my mind was the knowledge that I had lost everything. Being sold away from the gladiatorial system had taken away my entire lifetime of accomplishments. My months as a prisoner on Roan Seven had been spent in a daze of despair and loss. I had hoped to escape using the last slivers of the skull beetle I had managed to hang onto, but the knowledge that there was nowhere for me to go had haunted my steps.
I was now aboard a strange starship headed by a captain I couldn’t get a read on, and I was usually great at reading people. Her crew didn’t act like the normal cast of starship crewmates, and the ship itself was surprising with its fine furnishings, yet poorly maintained loading rooms. There was one thing that circled around my mind, one thought that built a fire in my belly the way the skull beetle did. This crew and this ship needed me.
I took the razor from the hook and carefully shaved away the scruffy beard that had grown during my months on Roan Seven. As a gladiator, I had always kept clean shaven. Some of the warriors chose to hide behind massive beards, thinking to intimidate their enemies, but I had nothing to hide.
A few scars were revealed, a faint one along my jaw where a hammer had split it open, the jagged one down my cheek from the blow that had broken my cheekbone, and a few others that were fainter and had healed better. The new one on my forehead would add to it without bothering me. Scars were nothing to hide from. They were totems of survival. Each was a testament to a battle that hadn’t killed me.
I glanced down at the scars that littered my bare arms, chest, and legs. Many more marked my back, reminders of a life I no longer lived. Perhaps it had all been just a dream, another life that didn’t exist. Maybe without me there, there were no more gladiatorial battles, no betting, no losers, and no winners paraded around like heroes before the crowd, heroes who would never be free.
I shook my head. Of course it went on. I wasn’t a pivotal gear in that money-driven machine. It no doubt flourished the way it had before I was sold to Sir Calladar. Marks and gold, gems and meteor dust would fuel the system no matter who battled on the arena floor. It was just unsettling to no longer be a part of it.
I turned off the shower and grabbed the fluffiest towel I had ever seen. It made the yaken wool rags at the Palladium look like fyn husks. I wiped off the drips of water with a grin at what the other gladiators would say if they saw me.
A feeling nagged at the back of my mind. It was a suggestion that
I had taken too long relaxing and I was missing something I should be a part of. I shrugged into the borrowed clothes, found a pair of shoes in the closet for which my sore feet were immensely grateful, and jogged up the hall in the direction I hoped was the bridge.
I put a hand to the square beside the door. The Verian’s statement that the panel would only give me limited access to the ship made me pause. I was grateful when the screen beeped and the door slid aside without any hesitation. It made me wonder what access I didn’t have. The bridge seemed a pretty important security oversight if they were concerned about me.
A wide window overlooked the dome of a dark blue planet. The clouds swirled in spiral patterns across the surface and a dwarf sun was just visible at the edge of the horizon.
When I stepped onto the bridge, the golden-eyed spitfire I had rescued from the fight spun in her pilot’s chair. Her eyes widened when she saw me.
“Who are you?”
“The Smiren,” I replied. At her blank stare, I said, “The one who saved you from the Drakornian.” When she shook her head, I sighed and told her, “The guy you electrocuted.”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, right.” She looked me up and down and gave a whistle. “You clean up nice.”
I brushed her comment aside and glanced around the bridge. “Where’s the Captain? I need to ask her—”
“She’s on the ground with Kaj and Jashen Blu, but they’re under attack,” the pilot said. Her tight voice let me know why she was so jumpy; things weren’t going well at all.
“What?” I replied. “Why did they go down there?”
“The Captain had a rendezvous with Lady Winden, but the Amarians are at war with the Raths again, so she had to sneak through.” The pilot’s face paled. “But her transmission shows them pinned down too far from the wall to make a run for it, and I’m under orders not to risk the SevenWolf to rescue them.”
I followed the pilot’s gaze to the monitors that lined one side of the wall. Three different transmissions came from those on the ground. Kaj’s screen showed Captain Nova and a young man I hadn’t met before huddled behind an outcropping of pale blue rocks. Captain Nova’s monitor panned to Kaj. The man was clutching his leg and blood streamed from a gunshot wound above his knee. The gloves of Captain Nova’s spacesuit were red as she tied bandages around the wound.
“Captain, they’re coming,” Jashu Blu said with an edge of fear to his voice. He sneezed loudly.
His transmission showed a group of black suited men and women closing in on the rocks. There were far too many for the three of them to take out.
“Get me down there,” I told the pilot.
Chapter Four
NOVA
“I thought she said the hostilities weren’t as bad so close to the wall,” Kaj said through gritted teeth. “Why would she say that?”
Nova tied the tourniquet around his leg as tight as she dared. She didn’t want to cut off the blood supply to the lower part of his limb, but bleeding out from the gunshot wound was a greater threat. He winced and her heart went out to him.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, her voice thick with worry. “Maybe this isn’t as bad as what they’ve been dealing with? The Raths have been adamant about the statue.”
“Why won’t they just give it up?” Jashu Blu asked from where he watched the opening between the rocks.
Nova shook her head. “They both worship the statue and each group is convinced it belongs to them.”
“Well, it doesn’t belong to us and we want nothing to do with it,” Kaj said in a tight voice. “Two hundred and fifty years is a long war to fight.” He winced in pain and clutched his leg. Blood colored his gloves. “Couldn’t Lady Winden have just authorized us to land inside the wall, My Lady?”
Nova had thought the same thing more than once but hadn’t wanted to say it aloud. “She said it’s a restricted fly zone. No one is allowed to fly over the statue in case it gets crashed into or something.”
“Oh bother,” Kaj muttered.
“Captain, they’re getting closer,” Jashu Blu said. “What do we do?”
Nova glanced behind them. The wreckage of the ATL that had been shot down when they tried to land smoldered in the distance. It would offer no escape. They had to go forward, but how did she order that with Kaj already injured and Jashu Blu barely old enough to be on her crew in the first place? With the number she had seen advancing on them, her only hope was for Lady Winden to send out a rescue.
“Radio the Amarians again. See if you can get through to Lady Winden. It’s our only hope!”
“She knows we’re here,” Kaj said. “She should have sent a rescue the moment our ATL was shot down.” He shook his head, his expression one of regret. “I’m sorry, My Lady, but I think we’re about to be taken prisoner in this war.”
A fist tightened around Nova’s heart. If Lady Winden couldn’t be bothered to send out a rescue squad a few hundred feet from her wall, Nova doubted she would go so far as to free them from a Rathian prison. She pulled her guns from their sheaths regardless of the blood that made her hands slick. She refused to let her crew suffer for the position she had put them in. If she had to pay for their lives with hers, she would do so.
“My Lady, don’t do it,” Kaj protested. “It’s a death sentence out there. You can’t—” He took a step to stop her, then sucked in a breath at the pain in his leg.
“Wait here,” Nova told him. She put on her helmet. “Let me see if I can get them to negotiate.”
“I’m not leaving your side,” Jashu Blu said firmly despite the fear she saw in his eyes. He held a gun in each of his four hands, but she hadn’t seen him hit more than a rock at the feet of the soldiers who advanced on them.
“Stay here and protect Kaj,” she said.
“But, My Lady—”
She shook her head. “That’s an order, Jashu Blu.”
He lowered his gaze and his arms. “Yes, My Lady.”
“This is madness,” Kaj protested.
Nova glanced through the opening in the pile of rocks that shielded them from the advancing troop. Her heart slowed. There were at least a dozen of them if not more. She couldn’t hope to take them down by herself. Maybe she could get them to negotiate if they saw that she was unarmed.
She set her guns on the rock nearest Jashu Blu. “Just in case,” she told him.
“Don’t try it, My Lady,” Kaj begged.
“We don’t have a choice,” Nova replied.
She took a steeling breath, then stuck her hands out of the opening in the rocks. When her fingers weren’t immediately shot off, she took that as a good sign. She switched her headset’s voice projector on.
“We don’t mean any harm,” she began. “Please let me talk.”
Silence followed.
Nova closed her eyes to gather her nerves, then opened them and stepped out into the open.
Every gun was trained on her. The dark helmets of the men and women who held them hid any expressions from view.
“I-I’m unarmed,” she said. “Please don’t shoot!”
“Shoot her,” a voice commanded.
Ice spiked through her veins. “Wait!” she protested. She pulled off her helmet and let it fall to the ground. “I am just requesting a conference with Lady Winden beyond the wall. We are not enemies!”
“Anyone who wishes to meet with an Amarian is a conspirator with the enemy. Kill her,” the commander repeated.
Nova closed her eyes. She wondered how the impact of the bullets would feel. Would she die instantly? Would they leave her to bleed out? The knowledge that Kaj and Jashu Blu would follow filled her with such regret it hurt. She should have done everything completely different. If she had known where their path would have led them, she wouldn’t have dragged the others into it. Now, they would pay for all of her mistakes. Hopefully it would be quick. She clenched her hands behind her and waited for the volley to strike.
A yell was followed by a cry of pain. She opened her eyes to see so
meone in a SevenWolf spacesuit plunge a knife into one soldier and then spin and drive it into the chest of another. Her thought that perhaps it was Gardsworn was quickly erased when the man flipped a soldier onto the ground using a move she had seen replayed on the screen of the SevenWolf.
She could only stare as the Smiren moved from soldier to soldier. They put up a fight, but his attacks were swift and sure. He was onto the next before the body he left hit the ground. Bullets were fired, but in haste and fear. Several embedded the body of a soldier he held up in defense before moving on.
She could only stare at the lethality of it. In her mind, buying a gladiator made sense. She needed someone who could fight if they had even a chance of being successful, but fighting and this swift, calculated annihilation of an entire troop were two entirely different things. He was saving their lives, yes, but what was to keep him from finishing the job with her, Jashu Blu, and Kaj, then taking the ship for himself as the Drakornians had wanted to do? Surely he didn’t want to be a captive forever. Had he already killed the crew aboard the SevenWolf? How else could he have gotten down here? She hadn’t had a chance to tell him anything about her plans or why they had even purchased him. Would he give them the chance?
She took several steps back and placed herself between Jashu Blu and where the Smiren was finishing off their final attackers. The young man held out her guns, but she shook her head. As much as she wanted the reassurance of them in her hands, she had seen what this man did to those who were armed. Perhaps being defenseless would get through to him.
The sounds of fighting stopped. The lone dying moan of a man was silenced. The lack of sound was more terrifying than the battle had been. Footsteps followed, crunches along the salty blue ground. Nobody in the rock crevice dared to speak. Kaj breathed hard, but Nova didn’t dare look away to check on him. Her heart pounded a double rhythm in her chest. The footsteps paused at the opening, and then the man in the spacesuit ducked inside.
He looked from one of them to the next. Nova took a small step to the right, shielding the others the best that she could in case he decided to attack. It would at least give them a small chance to escape.
