Freeforce: The Gryphon Saga

by L. E. Horn

  Lianndra couldn’t avoid the resulting collision. She tried to roll out of it, sending her skrin searching for a platform two levels below the one originally intended while struggling to free herself from the thrashing girl. The large Farr in pursuit of her couldn’t avoid the collision either. He slammed into her, arm flung wide, raking his claws deep into Lianndra’s side.

  Her breath left her in a rush of expelled air and pain lanced through her. Her Dancer instincts saved her, delivering her to the lower platform while her legs barely held her upright. She locked eyes with the Farr, who landed one level farther down.

  His lips parted in a grimace, exposing sharp teeth. She knew he smelled the blood coursing down her side. With resignation, she saw his fist clench and felt her skrin wind around her, binding her to the platform.

  She couldn’t see the newbie. Lianndra could only hope she had avoided a lethal tumble to the Coliseum floor. Dizzy from the loss of blood, she barely felt the Farr crawl over her, trailing his tongue along her wound. Then she realized both Farr were on her, sharing the steady red flow.

  That doesn’t bode well for the newbie, she thought, shuddering with revulsion. Lianndra started to lose consciousness. They’ll be carrying me out of this one.

  The darkness closed in.

  LIANNDRA GRIMACED IN PAIN, GIVING an involuntary moan under Tania’s expert administration. The healtech did its work, stitching the muscles closed over her exposed ribs. The claws had missed her lung, or they would not have bothered carrying her here. But it came close this time.

  Tania finished healing and patted Lianndra on the shoulder. She moved to her workstation bench, stripping off the healing technology in one fluid movement.

  Lianndra frowned as the medic approached her with a small tube filled with orange liquid. “Now what? I don’t need anything extra. A few days and I’ll be good as new.”

  Tania shook her head, tapping the tube against the table’s edge. “This is new. Some kind of vitamins. Only the best Dancers get it.”

  Lianndra didn’t want anything cooked up by the Fang injected into her body. “No thanks,” she said, but yelped as Tania stopped tapping the tube against the table and slapped it against Lianndra’s bare thigh instead. “Hey!” The liquid stung as it entered her body.

  “Sorry, refusal not an option.” Tania turned away. “I have my orders too, you know.”

  Lianndra boosted herself off the table, rubbing her thigh as it burned. Tania remained busy at her medpanel, entering data. Lianndra muttered thanks before leaving the room. She swayed as she walked along the corridor toward her quarters. Need to sleep. Lost even more blood than I thought.

  EWTK’FISK SHIVERED WITH COLD. IT wasn’t a familiar sensation, but this low in the bowels of the giant ship the environmental controls were at the bare minimum for Tlok’mk tolerance. Even the lighting stayed dim. The maintenance slaves servicing the giant pipes and conduits running through these corridors needed neither heat nor light to perform their allotted tasks. Their collars linked to the Central Intelligence Processor, which monitored activities and reported any rare anomalies to their ward supervisors.

  As she walked, she watched a large blocky alien hauling a machine behind it. It paused at the intersection of a huge pipe to blast it with sealant before continuing. It ignored her, and Ewtk’fisk realized she didn’t know if it was capable of independent thought. She couldn’t remember the species’ name, a detail that bothered her more than it once would have.

  She pulled her thick cowl tighter around her shoulders. Tlok’mk were susceptible to the cold for their scaly skins had no mechanism to maintain warmth. Her animal skin cowl retained the heavy fur. She’d lifted it from under the nose of one of her coworkers, someone who monitored the maintenance slaves on the lower levels. It would have been hard to explain why Ewtk’fisk needed such a garment.

  A noise made her jump and spin. She relaxed only a little when she recognized Xoek’sank’s form in the shadows, wearing a cowl made from a glittery synthetic material. Beside her stood a taller Tlok’mk Fara who Ewtk’fisk did not recognize.

  As Ewtk’fisk approached them, the older, slimmer Fara retreated even farther into the shadows.

  “There will not be an exchange of names,” Xoek’sank told her, drawing her into the darkness. “My friend has agreed to answer some of your questions. Afterward, you may decide if you wish to proceed any further.”

  Ewtk’fisk swallowed while forcing herself not to peer too closely at the mysterious Fara. Questions flooded her brain, threatening to overwhelm her. What am I doing here? This path can lead to nowhere good.

  A movement out of the corner of her eye revealed itself as another enslaved alien trudging along the corridor. This one dragged a section of conduit behind it on a sled. As the alien approached an intersection, its collar lit up, directing it along the correct path.

  A sight that should not cause me a moment’s thought. Like others of her kind, Ewtk’fisk always believed in her species’ right to dominate, based on their superior intellect and abilities. But what if it is all a lie?

  She turned her back on the alien to focus on the Fara who shouldn’t exist: a Tlok’mk who had rebellion in her heart.

  Ewtk’fisk formulated her first question.

  LIANNDRA AWOKE TO THE SHIFT in her equilibrium as a weight descended onto her bed.

  “Come on sleepyhead,” a familiar voice urged, “you’ll miss the big event.”

  Lianndra groaned as she rubbed her eyes, which itched as if someone had poured beach sand into them. She felt strangely sick. Slaves didn’t get sick on the ship. The health program kept their immune system at peak performance while the air filters screened for any viruses or bacteria. The Motherships required stringent antibacterial protocols, due to the Fang susceptibility to certain bacteria. This explained the rigid sterilization procedures the human slaves went through before being brought to the ships.

  None of which explained her symptoms. Her head pounded as she straightened on her bed to peer at Andrea.

  The tall woman surveyed her friend. “What’s up? You look like crap. Didn’t think you’d lost so much blood with the last bout. Tania got to you quickly.”

  “I don’t know why I feel so lousy.” Lianndra reached for the fluid container she kept by her bed. “I suspect the vitamins Tania nailed me with are responsible.”

  “Vitamins? Tania?” Andrea seemed puzzled. “Oh, the orange stuff? She gave me that a while ago.” Her eyes widened. “Come to think of it, I was feeling sick afterward too.”

  Knowing Andrea had also received the concoction comforted Lianndra. Being singled out could be a bad thing when you were a slave. However, it did nothing to improve her current state. “What time is it?”

  “You’ve only got ten minutes to curtain.” Like most slaves, Andrea stuck with the human method of keeping time. The wards provided humans with their familiar methods of measurement. The Fang found such methods effective in keeping peace within the slave colony.

  Lianndra rubbed her eyes again. “Maybe I’ll just watch from here tonight. I might throw up if I even look at food.”

  Andrea frowned at her before sighing. “All right. I had a late lunch. I’ll hang out with you.”

  “You don’t have to miss supper on my account.” Lianndra attempted to swing her legs over the side of the bed.

  Andrea blocked her motion as she squeezed beside her. Lianndra noticed the woman still moved stiffly from her recently healed injuries. Andrea played with the bed’s folding sequence until the two of them sat comfortably. Lianndra gave up her protests and reclined, closing her eyes.

  Satisfied, Andrea activated the small private console, giving them a ringside seat to the night’s festivities. She handed Lianndra her beverage. “Drink. I have no idea what the orange junk contained, but you need to flush it from your system. Don’t worry about me, I’ll eat later. I’m Dancing tomorrow, and I don’t eat much the day before.”

  Lianndra frowned as she took a long sip of he
r drink. As a powerful Dancer, Andrea seldom received serious injuries. This last one was the exception for it had taken over two weeks to heal. Lianndra worried Andrea had not healed enough to participate in another Blooddance. She was one of Lianndra’s few remaining friends, so losing her would be devastating.

  As they watched the evening’s performance begin, Lianndra thought of those she’d lost in the last year. Of the seven original women enslaved in her group, only three remained alive. Small, blonde Muriel used her skrin to hang herself a month after their arrival on the ship. She’d excelled in the training and her first Blooddance went well. Afterward, she could not stop shaking, despite her friends’ best efforts to calm her. She’d excused herself to use the facilities in her room, and by the time the ward supervisor arrived to vaporize the jammed door, it was too late.

  Muscular Lacey Danced well for four months before being fatally wounded in a particularly gruesome Blooddance.

  Long and lithe, Beth was the best of them; a talented Dancer who just vanished after one particular match. The cube whisked her away with no one providing any answers.

  Tiny Michelle never performed well, barely lasting minutes each time before surrendering to the Fang. After a few such disgraces, the Fang sent her to a dreaded private party and she was never seen again.

  The last surviving slave from their group, Chia, was a reasonable Dancer who stuck to a small Spanish-speaking clique, shunning others.

  The rooms of the dead or disappeared never stood empty for long. The wards remained full of women, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five. Lianndra gave up counting them as a steady stream of newbies came in to replace those lost. Most slaves kept to small social groups, treating each other like family and discouraging newcomers. Often based on common culture or language, these cliques reflected the vast cultural variety on Earth. Over time, the groups lost their members. Older Dancers often turned to solitude by preference. It proved easier on the heart.

  A few successful Dancers, those rare ones surviving for many years, gained social status and jobs outside of Dancing. They became ward supervisors, guards, cleaners, cooks, medtechs, or other supporting staff for the huge slave complex. Those dying during the Blooddance vanished. Lianndra often wondered if they ended up as part of the food chain or if the Fang disposed of them. Dancers who performed poorly never returned from the private parties. The most mysterious disappearances were those of the good Dancers. Often the best ones vanished without a trace right after a Blooddance, never to be seen or heard from again. Despite many attempts to pump the ward supervisors for information, Lianndra hadn’t been able to find out anything about them.

  Their area contained only human women but Lianndra knew there were other slaves on the ship. Each species resided in distinct zones, and they were further separated based on gender. The zones never mixed. The human females seemed reserved for the Blooddances. Some human males and many alien prisoners went into Pitfights.

  Scheduled after the evening series of Blooddances and held twice weekly, the Pitfights featured a duel to the death. Rarely, a Fara the humans called the priestess, granted the participants a reprieve.

  With her features hidden by a red shroud, the priestess sat flanked by other disguised figures in a box hovering high above the Pit’s floor. As the fight neared its grisly end, a strident horn sounded, indicating action should cease. The priestess used a colored beacon to show whether the bout would be to the death. Some said the priestess possessed favorites she protected on a whim. Lianndra noticed a few Pit slaves consistently benefited from the Fara’s decisions.

  Every night Lianndra watched the assorted Blooddances and Pitfights on the monitors. They piped the events into the wards starting at dinnertime, and many slaves gathered in the mess hall to cheer on their favorites. Lianndra always watched, even on those nights when pain incapacitated her. She scanned the participants for a tall young man with silver eyes.

  She didn’t know if she wanted to see Michael in the Pit. Popular opinion held that most male slaves went to the front lines of the war. Only certain ones fought in the Pit, and she didn’t know what the Fang used as selection criteria. She didn’t want to see Michael enter the Pit only to die in his first fight. Maybe death had already come for him.

  During the day she kept busy training, socializing, or watching the Blooddances. At night, as the wards darkened for the sleep cycle, her tough demeanor eroded, and her thoughts roamed. She dreamed of Michael often. He provided her with a symbol of hope in a hopeless situation. When she couldn’t hold back the despair during the last moments before she fell asleep, her thoughts turned to the tall young man she’d known for only a few days. Sometimes, Lianndra didn’t want to know what had happened to him. She feared she might lose her fragile hold on sanity if she discovered he had died. Yet part of her longed to see him again. As long as she had hope, maybe someday that would happen and this living hell would end.

  This day’s first Blooddance featured a single newbie—a limber Dancer who made a commendable effort avoiding the Farr for twenty minutes before he drew blood. The Dance went on for a bit longer before the newbie’s own skrin attacked her. It seemed a minor injury, and the girl would live to Dance again, unlike Muriel and others who chose to end their own lives rather than face another Blooddance. The Fang didn’t seem too interested in preventing such deaths, not willing to provide counseling for those not mentally tough enough to survive on their own.

  The rest of the Blooddances offered matches between prominent Dancers and Farr. Everyone rooted for their favorites. Andrea and Lianndra were no exception, cheering when one of their own kept the Farr at bay for nearly three hours. This meant the Pitfight didn’t start until late. Lianndra’s head pounded by the time the screen focused on the darkened Pit.

  A spotlight shone on the first contestant—an alien the humans called a Gryphon. Lianndra admired the big alien’s appearance. It used a stance much like the mythical centaur, with the trunk and arms held upright while it swiftly traveled on four strong legs. The muscular limbs ended in clawed toes, but the arms were more delicate and featured humanlike fingers. The dexterous hands could as easily wield weapons as they could calibrate a mechanical device. The arms flowed into broad, powerful shoulders, while the neck arched in a short but graceful curve to a set of long, tufted ears. Oversized violet eyes lay to the sides of the elongated head and the jaws tapered to a hooked beak similar to that of a bird of prey.

  Lianndra had seen images of these creatures in their natural state. Normally, the head possessed either a crest or mane of longer feathers. The feathers stood up around the head when the creature was angry.

  There were no feathers or fur on the creature in the Pit. The Fang sterilization procedure left it looking like a plucked chicken. Its skin featured multicolored patterns that Lianndra theorized mimicked the missing fur. Elongated spikes started from the back of the head and continued in a single row along its torso, becoming a series of shallow, rounded bumps on the back before flaring up to pointed spikes as a crest along the top of a whippy tail.

  The Gryphon were the Fang’s nemesis, their enemy in the current war. Lianndra had heard that captured Gryphon suffered through multiple torture sessions. Eventually, they found their way to the Pit, where they died. Although the Gryphon became fierce fighters, the Fang always ensured the scales tipped to favor their opponents. Forced to battle unarmed, the Gryphon faced the heavy battle-axes and swords their opponents wielded. Even then it was often a close conflict.

  The priestess seldom intervened in Gryphon fights.

  As the Gryphon entered the Pit, it reared on its hind legs, revealing something that surprised Lianndra—breasts. Normally disguised by fur, the creature possessed two breasts between the forelegs. Lianndra had never seen a female Gryphon. As the light played across the form on the monitor, she noticed the creature appeared more refined than the males she’d seen, with a narrower body, finer legs, and a sleeker overall appearance. The females had more muted skin color
as well: soft golds and purples rather than the vibrant yellows and blues of the opposite sex.

  Lianndra detected pride in the Gryphon’s stance as she locked her gaze with the priestess. Lianndra thought she saw the hooded form twitch. It seems the Fara has failed to break this Gryphon’s spirit.

  The light shifted off the Gryphon to the Pit’s other side, where her opponent appeared. Lianndra stared in astonishment at the creature oozing into the arena. The body was blob-like, translucent, with various dim shapes floating within it. The blob constantly altered color while radiating a soft light. A crown of delicate tentacles probed the air above it, while larger ones dragged it forward from beneath. If terrestrial, the creature’s home must have much less gravity than what the ship created.

  “Jelly,” Andrea said. “I’ve only heard of them. Never seen one.”

  “It has no weapon,” Lianndra noted, “and it can barely move in the sand. This won’t be much of a fight. They must like this Gryphon.”

  Andrea had made a supply run a few hours ago. She shifted on the bed beside Lianndra to reach her beverage and snack. “I’ve heard the Jellies are nasty. Must have something up its sleeve.”

  The overhead lights came on, a sign the fight was about to begin. A horn sounded. Obviously, the Gryphon agreed with Andrea’s assessment for she circled the Jelly with caution, keeping maximum distance between her and the ponderous blob. Her upper torso remained erect, leaving her arms free. Her spikes rose until they bristled in aggression. The tip of her long tail twitched, like a cat planning to pounce.

  The Jelly crawled toward the Pit’s center, seemingly unaware of the circling Gryphon. The colors shifted from blues through green to yellow.