Warwick: Galactic Arena

by Michael James Ploof

  Soon we were directly beneath the drogan, but for some reason, the beast wouldn’t attack, and it remained just out of range, watching us.

  “New strategy.” I ordered the beast to stop, then I climbed down and changed out the mind control arm for the grappling hook arm.

  “What are you doing?” Purshia asked.

  “Fishing for drogan,” I said with a wink.

  I don’t know if the winged beast knew what I was up to, but as soon as I sighted it in the interface, it swerved left and flew toward the forest.

  “You can run…,” I said as I waited for the targeting system to turn green. “But you can’t hide!”

  I fired and watched with bated breath as the thin glowing line shot out of the barrel on the back on my nano arm and arced toward the drogan. I was so caught up in hitting the thing that the implications didn’t immediately set in. But then the grappling hook hit the beast in the back, and the line began to straighten out.

  “Oh shit—” I said and braced myself.

  “Run with it or its going to rip your arm off!” Ella urged.

  “See you soon, ladies!” I yelled and ran toward the ledge.

  I jumped when the rope tightened, but it still gave me a hell of a case of whiplash. I was yanked off the edge, and it kind of felt like jumping onto a moving train and grabbing the handle with one arm, except your hand doesn’t let go.

  There was a pop in my shoulder, and my entire back cracked all the way to my tailbone. The sudden speed was exhilarating, and had I not been flying high over jagged rocks, I might have enjoyed myself.

  The drogan glanced back angrily as I sailed behind it like a human kite. The velocity kept me aloft, but if the drogan slowed down or turned around, I’d be taken for a hell of a ride. I mentally willed the nano arm to reel in the line, kind of like you would command a finger to move.

  I was yanked forward when the line reeled in with a high-pitched whine, then the drogan roared and dove for the trees.

  I had mere seconds before I was bashed against a tree like a dirty rug, and I grunted as I sped toward the diving creature. I caught up to it, but I was going faster and coming in at an angle, so I ended up swinging under it and up the other side.

  It was a hairy maneuver, but I managed to reel myself in as I wrapped around the drogan. I reached for the thick feathers, but was batted away by one of the wings.

  The collision sent me spinning off to one side of the drogan as it pulled up to avoid colliding with the trees. I was hanging just below its chest, and the drogan knew it. Just to be a dick, it glided lower, until I was battered by a steady barrage of branches.

  Birds scattered, tree limbs flew, and leaves fell around me like confetti, but I held on tight and steadily reeled myself in.

  When I reached the creature’s chest I gave it a good punch with my nano arm. I knew the blow wouldn’t hurt the beast, but I was pissed.

  The drogan suddenly shot straight up in the air and beat its quad wings as it reached for the heavens. I fought for breath against the howling wind and slammed into the drogan’s chest when it changed course.

  I carefully maneuvered myself around the wings, letting out some line so I could get to the tail feathers. The grappling hook line was wrapped around the beast’s neck, over one wing and under the other, and I was trailing behind it.

  I managed to get hold of a long tail feather, and I used it to steady myself as I reeled in the line.

  The drogan glanced back now and again to see what the hell I was doing, and when it finally spotted me climbing up its tailfeather, it went ape shit. The beast spun and twisted, barrel-rolled and dove, but I wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Stop moving so much, you son of a bitch!” I cursed as my stomach did a few somersaults and threatened to blow chunks.

  I was getting badly nauseated by that point, and I was over getting tossed around. I needed to switch out my nano arms and fire a mind control dart before the thing slapped me against a cliff with its tail, but I couldn’t disengage the line without falling to my death.

  Or could I?

  I got an idea as the drogan went into another furious dive.

  I hurriedly wrapped an arm around the streaming tail feathers. Once I was secure, I curled my arm so it was pressed against my chest. This would allow me to hold on and use my hand. I quickly dismissed the grappling line, which fizzled out of existence, then I changed out that arm for the mind control arm.

  I took aim as we sped for the ground and fired a dart at the drogan’s ass.

  Bull’s-eye!

  My interface showed a successful mental connection, and I screamed “Level out and stop fighting me!”

  Instantly the drogan straightened and glided on the warm currents. I climbed the tailfeather and crawled up onto the drogan’s back, settling in at the base of the neck.

  “Atta boy,” I said and stroked its neck. When I was dangling behind it, the drogan’s sex had been glaringly clear.

  It made a strange chortling sound deep in its throat, and judging from what I had learned from Drodog, I knew it was a good sound.

  I glanced at the ledge near our camp, unable to believe what I had just done, and that’s when my interfaces flared to life. One of my four screens flashed, and I tapped it with growing apprehension.

  The screen grew bigger, and on it was a female alien with golden skin that looked like a frigging Amazonian. Behind her was a swamp monster-looking alien.

  “Turn right!” I told the beast. “Go to that ledge.”

  The drogan complied with a growl, and I switched out the mind control arm for the machine gun arm. The twin barrels clicked into place as we bore down on the ridge.

  As we drew closer, I spotted Ella and Purshia behind a boulder on the shelf above our camp. Purshia had her shield up, and Ella was popping up behind it sporadically and firing down on the intruders.

  Amazonian Chick and Swamp Monster were hunkered down behind a stone lip. Swamp Monster had a gun like mine, and he was firing up at the girls’ position. Amazonian Chick didn’t have a gun arm on; she had a big-ass laser sword instead.

  To the right of their position, about twenty feet away, more gunfire erupted. There was another attacker there. He was a lizard-like creature with a big head and dusty gray scales that made it hard to see him. He too had a nano gun, and he was also spraying the girls’ position.

  I thought about opening fire on the group, but I really didn’t want to kill t Amazonian Chick, no matter how big and imposing she was. She had proven she could be part of a group, even if she had teamed up with two ugly sons of bitches like Swamp Monster and Lizard Boy. Maybe she would team up with us.

  Besides, she was pretty damn hot.

  They hadn’t seen me coming yet, since I was using the trees as cover. I switched out my machine gun arm for the mind control arm and took aim at Amazonian Chick. When I was within a hundred yards, I fired.

  The dart struck home, and my interface showed the connection had been made.

  I instantly felt the woman’s will attack my own. She was pissed as hell that I had invaded her mind, and she was fighting me hard.

  The drogan fought me a little as well. He swerved back and forth and craned his head back to glare at me. The predator decided to join in the fun, and while the nanobots kept them under my control, trying to control three different creatures proved too much.

  I had to let one of them go.

  I commanded the predator to attack Lizard Boy, and when it was close to the alien, I tapped my interface and released the beast.

  “Stop fighting me!” I commanded the drogan and Amazonian Chick.

  I turned the drogan around and flew over the group again, and Swamp Monster opened fire on me.

  “Kill him!” I commanded Amazonian Chick, and I watched from on high as she swung her big laser sword and chopped off his head.

  Attention, Warriors!

  An opponent has died.

  8 Remain.

  “Get out of my head!” Amazonian Chick
screamed at me as I flew by.

  “Stay there and don’t move,” I told her, and the nanobots in my mind must have spoken to hers, because she stopped moving and said no more.

  I steered toward Lizard Boy and switched to my machine gun arm. He fired into the sky, and I fired back. I was going way too fast for him to hit us, and my shots thudded into the stone beside him.

  But hitting him hadn’t been my intention. I’d been trying to expose him for Ella.

  Her gun arm chattered as I circled back, and Lizard Dude returned fire. His bullets bounced off Purshia’s nano shield, missing them both.

  “You hungry?” I asked the drogan.

  He perked up and cooed.

  “Fly in low and pounce on that ugly lizard bastard,” I commanded.

  The drogan circled around and swooped down as the gunfight continued. We came in so close to the ground that we moved stones with our wind, and by the time Lizard Boy saw us, it was too late.

  The drogan landed on top of him, bent its long neck, and bit the poor bastard in two.

  Attention, Warriors!

  An opponent has died.

  7 Remain.

  I leapt off my mount and raced toward Amazonian Chick before the girls could get to her.

  “Wait!” I said when I saw them hurrying down from their perch with murder in their eyes.

  When I neared Amazonian Chick, she growled at me, but she didn’t seem to be able to do anything about it.

  “Relax,” I said, “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “Get out of my head, shit eater!” she yelled, and I felt a pain in my head, like someone was trying to claw their way out.

  I mentally pushed back and let out a roar as I bore down on her.

  She trembled, her laser sword ready to strike but unable to move it.

  “Deactivate your sword arm and take it off,” I said evenly, holding eye contact.

  She let out a frustrated whimper but complied.

  “Toss it to me,” I commanded her. I should have worded it better, because she launched the thing like a major league pitcher.

  I caught the cylinder with my nano arm, and the girls came racing to my side.

  “Can we keep her?” Purshia asked with a purr.

  “Too dangerous,” said Ella and looked at me.

  “We’re not going to hurt her.”

  Somehow she suddenly broke free of my mental command and sprang toward me with alarming speed. I side-stepped the attack and grabbed her left arm with my nano arm, then twisted it behind her back. I tripped her and shoved her to the ground face first, put a knee in her back, and slapped my handcuffs on her ankles.

  She craned her head and glared up at me with a mix of fury and passion.

  Oh boy.

  “You bastard!” Amazonian Chick growled. How dare you violate my mind?”

  I held her down and pulled the dart out of her neck. In case she tried anything, I kept my weight on her lower back.

  “Sorry, but you were attacking my girlfriends, and it was either a mind control dart or a bullet,” I told her.

  “Girlfriends?” she said, intrigued.

  “We’re a team.” I regarded Purshia and Ella. “And we could use another strong warrior.”

  Purshia clapped, but Ella wasn’t as enthused.

  “There are seven players left,” I said. “Us four and three others. You’re doomed on your own. You should join us.”

  “I do not take suggestions from men,” she said, seething with anger.

  “We can’t let you go, and we don’t want to kill you. You teamed up with Swamp Monster and Lizard Boy, so team up with us. We’ve got a plan to get the hell out of here.”

  “Harry is a great leader,” said Purshia.

  A scoff from Amazonian Chick. “I do not follow men.”

  “Bring her into camp,” I told Ella and Purshia.

  “Try anything,” said Purshia, “and I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  She and Purshia helped her to her feet and led her back to camp. I scoured the landscape and checked the skies for drogans, but I didn’t see any. A quick scan of my four surveillance feeds revealed nothing, so I set about looting the dead aliens.

  I detached both nano arms and put the small cylinders in my pocket with the one I had taken from Amazonian Chick. Lizard Boy had a backpack, and I found ten food pouches inside, along with a water container, a few gray mushrooms with prickly stems, and a length of strong rope.

  The other alien wore no clothes and carried no pack, so I left them where they were and returned to camp.

  “Keep watch,” I instructed the drogan. “If anything approaches, kill them.”

  The girls were waiting for me, Ella had a nano gun aimed at Amazonian Chick, who sat on the stone shelf against the back wall. Purshia squatted just out of the alien’s reach and was studying her intently.

  She had been talking to Amazonian Chick, but when I walked in they stopped and turned to regard me.

  “You got a name?” I asked her.

  “I am Valenkren, Queen of the Nozama people.”

  “I’m Harry Warwick, and this is Ella and Purshia. Can I call you Val?”

  “No.”

  “Fair enough. Have you decided to join us yet?”

  “What is this plan you have to escape?” she asked, and even with her brow furled she was beautiful.

  She was around six foot six. Her skin was dark gold, and her black hair was pulled back in a tight knot atop her head. She had big round aquamarine eyes, a straight, Egyptian-looking nose, and a pair of dark lips that were mesmerizing. Her body was just as impressive as her stature. She was barefoot, and had long muscular legs, wide hips, and a narrow waist. Her ass was plump but pert, fully revealed by the tight leather thong she wore. The strip of cloth disappeared between those golden orbs and rode up the front, barely containing her clearly outlined camel toe. Each breast was as big as my head, but they were well proportioned to her frame. They hung like melons in a leather bikini top. Her puffy nipples were outlined in the dark leather.

  “We’re going to fly a drogan through the door in the sky,” I said.

  She burst out laughing. “You will fly a drogan out of the arena? And then what? Fly it through space and back home to wherever you came from?”

  “Once we’re out, we’ll commandeer a ship or something. Purshia here is a pilot—”

  “A great pilot,” she said.

  “Your plans are like the ideas of a child,” said Valenkren. “Fanciful and unrealistic. A better plan is to kill everyone else and win the game.”

  “Then you think we should kill you?” Ella asked and aimed her nano gun at her.

  I watched Valenkren’s face closely, but she was hard to read.

  “I will join your team,” she said at length. “Take these shackles off my ankles and give me a weapon.”

  Ella laughed and offered me a look that said “get a load of this bitch.”

  “If I do that, you’ll attack.”

  “What if I do? Will you kill me?”

  “I will,” said Ella.

  I gestured for Ella to lower the gun. “Listen, Valenkren, I’m not playing games. We’ve got nine nano arms, a bunch of nanobot bonuses, tons of supplies, and a fucking drogan. We’re getting the hell out of here, with or without your help. We could have killed you, but we didn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I guess I saw something in you.”

  “I do not understand your words,” she said.

  “He likes your tits,” said Ella.

  Purshia chuckled, “Me too.”

  Valenkren raised a thin black brow. “You want to mate with me, make you one of your girlfriends, is that it?”

  “This isn’t about that. It’s about survival.”

  “The way to survive this arena is to be the last woman standing.”

  “Say you win. Do you really trust that the grays are going to return you to your home planet? Why in the hell would they do that? Win this one, and
they’ll probably put you in another one. Maybe it’s a big tournament, maybe they’re betting on us like horses. Who the hell knows? Right now we’re captives, slaves. If we want to get out of here alive and with our freedom, we’ve got to do it ourselves.”

  “You have a warrior’s spirit.” Val said grudgingly, as if she didn’t want to admit it. “I see the wisdom in joining your harem, but on my world, women do not follow men.”

  She’d said that before. “Take it or leave it.”

  “I will not mate with you. You are small for a man, and you could not please me.”

  “You’d be surprised,” said Ella.

  Purshia giggled. “Show it to her! I want to see the look on her face.”

  “Knock it off,” I told them and tried not to laugh. “You’re not required to mate with anyone. Tell you what, I’ll give you the night to think about it.”

  She tilted her head and shifted like the cuffs were uncomfortable, but I wasn’t taking them off, not yet. I didn’t trust her, but I didn’t have it in me to kill her either, and it wasn’t because she was a beautiful alien woman with huge cans and a beautifully exotic face.

  Okay, that might have had something to do with it, but the bottom line was I couldn’t kill anyone in cold blood. Not if I didn’t have to, anyway.

  “I do not need the night to think,” said Val. “I have decided I will join you. Take these shackles off now. I need to piss.”

  “Be quiet and stay there,” Ella told her and gestured for Purshia and me to follow.

  “I don’t trust her,” she said when we were out of earshot.

  “What about you?” I asked Purshia.

  “I know her people,” she said. “They are stubborn and as strong as a billotho. Like she said, their society is matriarchal. Their men are smaller than you by a neck and a head. But one thing that is the same in all of them is that they do not lie.”

  “Everyone lies. All creatures must use deception to survive,” said Ella.

  “Not the Nozama. They are a very honorable people.” Purshia was adamant. I trusted her judgement, but I doubted Valenkren’s aversion to deception would stop her from shooting us in the back the first chance she got.