Redemption's Shadow

by Rick Partlow

  Alvar did have that older female in his corner, though. She seemed capable and was speaking to him in low tones, which Katy thought were probably either reassurance or advice. She wondered how long the preparations would go on, but finally, the younger female she’d seen yesterday walked into the middle of the Pit, hands held high, and began speaking in high, piercing tones meant to reach the entire crowd gathered. Most of the crowd were on the neutral sides of the Pit rather than behind the two opponents.

  Everyone likes a good fight, I suppose, whether they’re humans or Jeuta.

  Katy understood not a word of what the female was saying, but there was growling and hooting from the crowd and Jouko raised his fists, taking up the noise. It sounded like a chant, maybe some kind of cheer. Once the younger female was done, she waved at Alvar with a noted lack of the enthusiasm she’d shown for Jouko, then walked out of the Pit. It was the older female’s turn now. She held herself straighter than the younger female had, her head upright, chin back as she replaced Jouko’s supporter in the Pit. Her voice was deeper but still pitched to carry, reminding Katy of Lyta Randell when she would address the troops.

  The Jeuta language was teasingly familiar to the human ear, as if it were something Katy should have been able to understand, something close to Basic. Which it was, of course. The Jeuta had been genetically engineered to speak Basic, but they’d stretched and distorted it into their own language over the last few centuries, into something no longer recognizable.

  She wondered if it had just been natural linguistic drift or if they’d done it on purpose because they couldn’t bring themselves to speak the language of the humans who had created them to be disposable servants.

  When the female, the one she thought Alvar had called Magnus finished her harangue, the small group of allies on the primus pilus’ side of the arena cheered as loudly and lustily as Jouko’s had, and then it was time for the two combatants to take their places. Jouko sauntered forward, muscles rippling in his lean, long arms and torso, barely any fat beneath thick, rubbery, skin of midnight blue. He wore uniform trousers, but they seemed tighter than Alvar’s, more form-fitting, and she wondered if that was as much of a function of the commander’s vanity as the decision to go shirtless.

  Alvar wore a loose, sleeveless shirt, the same grey color as his uniform pants and boots, but it couldn’t quite hide the massive girth of his chest. He was shorter than Jouko by a few centimeters, but Katy would have been willing to bet he outweighed his superior by five or ten kilograms. He didn’t high-step into the Pit the way Jouko had, approaching his opponent carefully, as if he expected Jouko to attack without warning.

  And whether or not that was against the rules, it was probably a prudent idea.

  There was no sneak attack though, and the two males began stalking each other, circling in the volcanic sand, Jouko with one hand held high, just above his shoulder, the other down at hip level. Alvar’s stance was more conventional to Katy’s eyes after months of self-defense training with Lyta Randell. He had his fists in front of his face, arms tucked in to protect his body.

  Jouko had the reach advantage and he tried to use it immediately, snapping a low kick at Alvar’s legs in a whipping motion similar to the roundhouse kicks Lyta had taught her. Alvar jumped back from the kick and began a lunge forward to take advantage of the miss throwing Jouko off balance, but stopped himself just before his weight shifted all the way. Katy couldn’t tell if his caution was warranted or not. If Jouko had been trying to sucker Alvar in, he didn’t show a sign of it, just waited, dancing lightly on the balls of his feet.

  Alvar should have continued to play it cautious. It was the tactically sound thing to do, was what Katy would have done, what she thought Lyta would have done. But Katy also knew the Jeuta had other concerns beyond simply winning the fight. He’d explained it to her, told her this was as much of a battle for hearts and minds as it was a duel to the death. He didn’t just have to beat Jouko, he had to show daring, boldness, even style.

  Alvar made a mistake. He lunged forward behind a front jab, then tried to swivel into a cross, but Jouko used his reach, slapping the jab aside and stepping away from the cross, landing one of his own into the side of Alvar’s head. Alvar staggered backwards, barely getting his guard back up before Jouko waded in swinging. One punch after another hammered at his arms, his sides, and panic roiled in Katy’s gut. Just one lucky blow had to sneak through and Alvar and she would both be dead.

  Alvar lashed out with a desperate front kick, the flat-footed push shoving Jouko back but not appearing to hurt him. Blood trickled down Alvar’s left cheek from a pressure cut but the Jeuta ignored it and shot in at the taller male, trying to bring him to the ground in a takedown around his hips. Jouko countered the takedown, spreading his feet and pushing Alvar’s face into the sand, then leaping onto his back.

  Alvar scrambled out from beneath the taller male, the motion partially hidden by the Jeuta shifting back and forth in front of her, but took another three vicious blows to the back of the head for his trouble. Alvar swung a wild backhand on his way up and tagged Jouko across the face, knocking him off balance, then followed it up, swinging another cross and connecting this time. Blood flew from Jouko’s mouth and Alvar ducked his head and pounded one punch after another into the tall male’s ribs.

  Katy’s hands curled into fists and she fought against the urge to swing them in sympathy with Alvar, lending him her fervent hopes and praying this would be the flurry that ended this fight. Jouko grabbed at the shorter male in desperation and managed to get a purchase on Alvar’s left arm just behind the elbow. She couldn’t quite follow what happened next, just a pull and a twist and a crack she could hear from twenty-five meters away and Alvar was stumbling to the side with his left arm hanging at his side, limp, his shoulder either broken or dislocated.

  The only thing that saved him from dying immediately was the beating he’d just given Jouko, which was enough to force the taller Jeuta to step away and try to catch his breath before he pressed his advantage. Alvar’s face was flat and nearly featureless by human standards, inexpressive as cockpit canopy of a mech, but Katy was sure she could see the agony playing across it. A jolt of surprise shifted her stance, as if she somehow hadn’t known Jeuta felt the same pain humans did. It was irrational, but prejudices generally were.

  Alvar’s face hardened and he turned back to Jouko as if he knew the end was inevitable but was determined to face it. Jouko said something, probably a taunt, and advanced on Alvar with a purposeful stride, as if intent on finishing the battle now. Alvar ran toward the taller Jeuta, his right arm cocked backwards, ready for a powerful swing, and Jouko didn’t try to step aside, seemingly confident he could dodge or block the punch.

  He could not, because it was never thrown. Alvar threw his body down into a slide at the very last second, Jouko’s roundhouse swing passing through the air where his head had been a moment earlier and Alvar’s outstretched heel caught the knee of Jouko’s plant foot with all of the shorter male’s weight behind it. If the crack of Alvar’s shoulder breaking had been sickening, the crunch of Jouko’s knee disintegrating nearly pushed Katy over the edge. Three weeks earlier, it would have been impossible to hold the bile in her throat, but somehow she managed it.

  Jouko’s leg bent backward like one of the ostrich-legged mecha Logan hated piloting because their stride was so different than what he was used to. The difference was, Jouko wasn’t walking anywhere. He screamed, the sound surprisingly high-pitched for one of the Jeuta, and collapsed forward. To his credit, he made a grab at Alvar on the way down, one last desperate attempt to latch on and grapple with his opponent, obviously knowing the loss of mobility meant death otherwise.

  Alvar had been prepared for the move and rolled out of reach, leaving Jouko stretched out helpless on the floor, unable to get to his feet. Katy thought the fight had been brutal up till now, but she’d been wrong. Alvar dismantled Jouko with all the mercy of a pack of wolves eating a downed elk aliv
e. The legatus tried to swing at the primus pilus as he stepped in, tried to grab at his leg, but the toe of Alvar’s boot snapped Jouko’s head back, sending blood spraying into the absorbent sand. Before the legatus could recover from the blow, Alvar stomped down on his commander’s right arm, snapping it above the elbow.

  Jouko didn’t move much after that, just shuddered as Alvar stomped down on his face and neck with one kick after another, not stopping until what was left was barely recognizable as anything that had once been a living, breathing, sentient being. Blood spattered the legs of Alvar’s uniform trousers, coated the soles of his boots as if he’d been wading in puddles of it.

  Katy hadn’t realized what had been missing from the picture until then, but now it came to her. The crowd. They’d said nothing, offered neither encouragement nor disappointment, not so much as a cheer. They’d waited silently, respectfully, until the final blow landed.

  Alvar waved to Petra, stepping back from the ruin that had once been Jouko and giving the female leave to step back into the Pit. Petra might have been devastated, might have been furious, might just have been numb, but Katy couldn’t have proven any of it by the expression on the Jeuta female’s face, because there wasn’t much of one. Petra made a show of checking whether Jouko was still alive, still capable of fighting, despite his caved-in face and the blood splashed across his bare chest. When she rose from his body, she held her right hand sideways, the fingers curled in and the thumb extended.

  For another, long moment there was silence, but then the chant started and Katy thought she heard it first from the older female naval officer.

  “Alvar…Alvar…Alvar….” It began softly but built up, growing in intensity as fists rose into the air, pumping in time with the rhythm of the chant. “Alvar! Alvar! Alvar!”

  Alvar raised his good arm in response, shaking his fist as if he was cheering the crowd on. Once his side of the Pit had taken up the chant, he turned to Jouko’s backers, as if he was challenging them, and she supposed he was. Theoretically, one of them could have stepped into the Pit with him and offered to fight again immediately, so this was a sort of second battle after the first, one for the support of the officer he’d just beaten to death.

  It began slowly, with a young male Jeuta who’d been near the back of the group on Jouko’s side, in a cluster of males who looked to be near his age. He raised his fist over his head, ignoring the stares of the others around him, yelling out Alvar’s name in a foghorn bellow, cutting through the chants of the others. He bellowed it again, stepping away from the group, moving to the edges of the cluster at Alvar’s side of the Pit. Another of the males joined him, then a third, and in less than a minute, more than two thirds of the Jeuta who had supported Jouko were yelling Alvar’s name, standing with his allies.

  Which still leaves a third that aren’t, but it’s probably enough to make any of the ones left not want to rock the boat.

  She found herself sighing in relief, and felt guilty for it almost immediately. Alvar was no saint, no friend to her, he was simply an enemy who had a use for her as opposed to an enemy who wanted her dead immediately. She didn’t flinch away when Alvar approached her, though, because in this place, that was probably the best she could hope for.

  “You’re safe, human,” he told her, his words a bit slurred, probably from exhaustion. “For now.” He nearly stumbled and the older female, Magnus, came up and put his good arm around her to support him.

  “Does anyone ever show mercy?” she wondered. “I mean, in the Pit? Does the winner ever spare the loser?”

  “The only one who could afford to show mercy to a downed opponent,” he told her, “is someone whose social power is so unassailable they don’t have to worry about the continuing threat he would pose.” He barked a laugh. “And who would bother to challenge someone as secure as that? Why? Would your God have wanted me to show Jouko mercy?”

  “Maybe He would have,” she confessed, hands crossed over her belly, “but I’m glad he’s dead.”

  Alvar yelled out something in Jeuta and one of his supporters stepped forward, saluting. Alvar barked a string of unfamiliar words at the female and she turned and strode away.

  “And soon, Kathren,” he continued to her in Basic, “we’ll see if any of this was worth it. I just ordered her to prepare a communications relay ship to be sent to the nearest human system to send a message to your husband. If you are as important to him as he is to you, I expect we’ll both hear from him soon.”

  20

  A Challenge Pit?” Logan repeated, eyebrow rising. “And that’s actually how you guys decide leadership advancement? The subordinate fights his superior officer to the death?”

  “No,” Kosti insisted around a mouthful of elk steak. “We are promoted on merit. The Challenge Pit is to settle disputes between those of nearly equal rank, for the most part. When either way might be the right one and both believe in their own position and can’t talk things out. But it can only be done when the challenger has a large network of social support.”

  Logan nodded, taking a drink of the dark ale he’d had delivered to the Jeuta’s cell. He’d grown used to waiting for the translation from the chair after nearly two weeks of daily sessions with the prisoner, and Kosti had become much looser and more talkative after Logan had introduced him to the wonders of elk and bison meat, neither of which the Jeuta had ever tasted before. The cell was still spare, and stripped of anything the Jeuta might use to harm himself—including a steak knife, which meant the meat had to be pre-cut—but the colors were calm neutrals rather than bare white, and a wall screen projected a variety of outdoor scenes of Kosti’s choice. He’d tried having music piped into the cell, but Kosti claimed all human music sounded like baby animals being tortured…or at least that was how the translators had parsed it.

  Logan still hadn’t been able to draw out any navigation coordinates for Jeuta worlds from the helmsman, but Kosti was more than willing to discuss his culture, which he considered far superior to human society once Logan had explained it to him.

  What does it say about me that I prefer spending time with a mortal enemy who’d cut my throat if he could get away with it, to the endless meetings and briefings and flesh-pressing of being the Guardian?

  “What do you humans do when a deputy believes in one course of action and his commander believes another?” Kosti demanded. “This is an irritant, a cancer in the good order of things that must be dealt with.”

  “Generally,” Logan told him, “if the superior won’t listen, the deputy commander has to simply do what they’re told.”

  Kosti snorted, spitting a few bits of steak out in the process. Table manners weren’t big among the Jeuta, apparently, unless Kosti was a slob by their standards as well. The Jeuta took a drink of the mead that was the only human drink they’d found he liked, sloshing it around in his mouth and swallowing.

  “Foolishness,” he declared. “Wounds left to fester. Better to fight it out and let the favored of the Purpose make his case in the only fair court.”

  “It’s certainly an interesting idea,” Logan admitted. “Maybe if Rhianna Hale had been forced to fight my father in a pit instead of staging a coup, we could have saved ourselves a lot of money, and time, and lives.”

  “You see?” Kosti slammed his palm down on the table, nearly knocking over the plate with what was left of his steak on it. “Even you, a weak human who knows not the Purpose can see the wisdom in it!”

  “What sort of weapons can you use in the challenge? Can you use guns?”

  “No.” Kosti’s motion of negation came simultaneously with the translation program’s computerized voice, which threw the persistent illusion Logan had built up of the Jeuta actually speaking Basic to him. “No ranged weapons of any kind, not guns or lasers or even bows and arrows.”

  Logan blinked, staring at the Jeuta in disbelief.

  “You have bows and arrows?” He’d never even seen one outside of a museum.

  “For sport. Cont
ests. But no, nothing that can shoot. Has to be something you can hit someone with, stab them, cut them. Too much luck involved in shooting someone. Challenge isn’t about luck, it’s about strength and skill. The idea is to make sure the most able, the most daring, the most intelligent and strong survive to lead the Jeuta.”

  “There’s luck involved in any sort of combat,” Logan pointed out. “I’ve been in fights in armor, on foot, with guns and with my bare hands, and there was always some degree of luck in it.”

  “You’ve never fought a Jeuta hand to hand, I can promise you that,” Kosti declared. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Not me, but I know a man who has. And he won.” At least that was the story Terrin had told him about Kammy taking on Wihtgar in the Engineering compartment of the original Shakak.

  “A human?” The computer simulated a scoffing sound. “I don’t believe it.”

  Logan smiled, leaning back in his chair.

  “I’ll have to introduce you to the man,” he offered. “Then you’d understand.”

  There was a knock on the door and Logan frowned, checking the time on his ‘link. He only spent an hour or so a day with Kosti, usually around dinner, and he’d left strict instructions not to be interrupted. The door pushed open and the Ranger guard stepped out of the way to allow General Donnell Anders to enter.

  Something in the man’s face warned Logan before he’d spoken a word.

  “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  Anders cast a doubtful glance at Kosti and Logan sighed, touching a control to shut off the translation program.

  “What is it?” he repeated.

  “We picked up a message sent over the relay net all the way from the Periphery,” Anders told him. “It’s from the Jeuta. And it’s addressed to you, personally.”