Alien Gladiator's Prize

by Zara Starr

  Gage wanted to find out what these females looked like, where they came from. He would win anyway, and he would own one, regardless of whether he liked them or not. If he didn’t, he could get rid of them. That was how he had done it before. Never had a female interested him for longer than a while, and he’d never kept one before.

  Selling and buying new weapons and interesting artifacts was more his style.

  Still, he was curious about the females too. He liked to learn about the universe, and the females often had interesting tales to tell about their planets.

  Usually, the gladiators weren’t allowed to see the females unless they were on display during the fights. And then, it was difficult to pay attention to them, because Gage had to focus on his opponent.

  Only the night before the finals the final two contestants were allowed to select their grand prize from the pool of females. But Gage didn’t feel like waiting that long. His curiosity got the better of him.

  He shifted from the kitchen table where his weapons still laid half-cleaned and found his communication device. He opened it, the holographic screen coming to life, and he found the person he was looking for.

  Qhin answered almost immediately.

  “It’s good to hear from you, Gage,” the Saithin officer said. “You’re too scarce these days.”

  Gage pulled up his shoulders. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Yes, I saw. Your fights are impressive. I started betting on the outcome, always for you to win. You haven’t let me down yet.”

  Gage laughed, enjoying the feeling of victory that came with that statement. He was indeed a good bet.

  “We miss you here though,” Qhin added. “It’s almost a shame that you are using your skills for championships rather than the military.”

  “It’s not for everyone,” Gage said.

  Qhin nodded. “Sadly, that’s true. Everyone wishes it was for you though.”

  Gage smiled. Before he became a gladiator, he had worked with the Saithin military as a weapons engineer. It had been good work – fulfilling – but he had often looked at the soldiers heading out and he had wondered why he was there, why he wasn’t the one fighting.

  Gage could have gotten into the military if he had really wanted to, but not for Saitha. He wasn’t a Saithin soldier, after all. He was Qai. And although the Saithin military was the best in the universe, they didn’t allow other species to join. It was a matter of discretion – it minimized the risk of recruiting spies, mutiny, that kind of thing.

  Of course, everyone had known that Gage wouldn’t turn against them, but rules were rules. The Saithin race was known for following their rules as strictly as they could.

  “To what do I owe this call?” Qhin finally asked after they had made small talk for a while, catching up on the championship and the military official’s family.

  “Do I only phone you when I want something?” Gage asked.

  “Well… Yes.”

  Gage laughed. “That’s disgusting of me,” he said. “But you’re right, I do need a favor.”

  They laughed together before Qhin asked Gage what he needed.

  “I want to see the prize pool,” he said. “I hear there are new females available and I am curious as hell.”

  Qhin shook his head. “You know I can’t do that, Gage. You know I respect you, but even if I could pull the strings to make that happen, that would be breaking protocol completely.”

  Gage had expected him to say that. Predicting how people would react was a gift all the Qai possessed, but Gage had developed his gift even further, using it as often as possible to strengthen it. As a result, Gage not only predicted what would come, but he also knew how to prepare for it and how to respond.

  “Come on, my friend,” Gage said. “It’s for a good cause.”

  Qhin laughed. “And what cause is that? It sounds selfish to me.”

  “Well, if I study this new species now, I would be able to let you know if going to the planet and abducting more of them is a waste of time. Doesn’t that sound good? Allowing the military the opportunity to further what they’re doing?”

  Qhin laughed again, as Gage had predicted, and shook his head.

  “You talk so much shit, it’s amazing. Just for that, the fact that you have the balls to make up so much nonsense just to entertain me, I’ll see what I can do. I’ll have to make a few discreet phone calls, but I can make it happen. You have to keep this between us though. It’s my career at stake. I can make your life hell if I have to.”

  Gage nodded. “You know it won’t go wrong. I’ll see to it.”

  Qhin agreed that Gage had to make sure that he did, and after having another short conversation about other important things, Gage finally ended the call.

  He felt good about himself. His predictive powers always helped him. It had never let him down. He had always been able to predict what everyone would do – how they would respond, how they would act – and it had helped him in life more than anything.

  If Gage had to defend himself, it always helped to know what the enemy’s next move would be. If it was a conversation, it helped him to know what to say.

  Whenever Gage was in an argument, he knew just the right words say to avoid escalating the fight. In fact, with the right words, he could ward off the problem instead.

  Did he feel bad that sometimes he used it to get what he wanted? Absolutely not.

  Gage was an excellent warrior, and he only used it for personal gain when his gift wouldn’t be to the detriment of others. If he would gain but others would lose, he wouldn’t do it. But getting a peek at the new species, at the exotic female that would be up for grabs soon, wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

  He returned to the kitchen table and continued to clean his weapon. Gage loved cleaning his weapons.

  Since he was young, he had been fascinated by weapons, by how they used energy to create an effect that was much stronger than anything a living creature could produce by itself.

  His father had always been worried that Gage would do something dangerous with a weapon – he had often snuck out of the house to get his hands on illegal weapons so that he could take them apart and then rebuild them. His dad had always punished him, but it was difficult to punish someone who could predict as well as Gage did.

  As soon as he had finished his education, he had enrolled in the engineering program, and he had specialized in weaponry. He had ended up working for the Saithin military because it was important that their weapons did exactly what they needed them to do to rule the universe the way the Saithin race did now.

  Some of his kind wondered why he was helping the Saithin so much, helping them create better weapons to control the universe. But even if he didn’t, the Saithin would have arrived at their domination themselves. It wouldn’t have stopped them. They were the most populous species of the universe. They had invented space travel before anyone else had even attempted it, and they had conquered numerous worlds.

  They hadn’t conquered the Qai homeworld, though he was well aware of what they had done to some other planets. But it was simply the way the world worked. The universe was filled with slaves. And their Masters. It was a dynamic that Gage could do nothing about. He was only one man. There was no reason to question it, no reason to work against it as some ridiculous activist aliens did.

  Who could go against the Saithin? It was not only stupid, but it was impossible.

  No, this was how it worked.

  He finished cleaning his gun, put it back together, and admired his handiwork. He aimed around his kitchen, both eyes open, finger on the trigger. He didn’t pull it. His antimatter gun would destroy most of the room if he did.

  It seemed to be calibrated correctly though. He wouldn’t worry. If it wasn’t calibrated right, he would be able to predict that and step in.

  After cleaning his weapons, Gage packed them away with care. He kept his antimatter gun on him at all times, but the rest of the weapons he cycled through, choosing a new one every da
y.

  When he had what he needed, he walked to his living room and sat on the couch, staring at the plasma screen that lowered from the ceiling. He switched it on and looked for reruns of the previous gladiator championships. He searched for the ones with him specifically. Where he had gone up against several different species over the past couple of years.

  When he found a fight he particularly enjoyed – a fight he had to work hard to win, he sat back and enjoyed the show.

  The only way he was going to learn from his own mistakes was by studying his technique.

  He watched as the creature on the screen jumped around, trying its best to get a leg up on the competition, trying to get ahead of Gage.

  Gage remembered this fight – he remembered knowing that the creature wanted to decapitate him.

  It hadn’t been a bad idea, as far as ideas went. Getting rid of his thought process would definitely have ended things. The creature had known that Gage used his incredible mind to predict his moves.

  It just hadn’t considered that Gage would be able to predict that too.

  Generally, Gage didn’t kill when he fought. He didn’t like to take the lifeblood of another creature. Nor did he see the point in it. After all, killing was a strange impulse where the gladiator who took the life seemed to want to prove himself. Gage had often seen the slaves kill when they fought and won, trying to prove that they were stronger, better, than the rest.

  Of course, the slaves all had to prove a lot to their Masters. Gage never had that urge. The few free gladiators that fought of their own volition never killed unless they absolutely had to, to survive.

  Gage himself had only killed once. It had been because his opponent had almost gotten a leg up on him, planning his moves so quickly, changing his mind over and over again so that Gage got confused. His predictions had changed over and over again and it had been the idea – it was what his opponent had wanted.

  To save himself, Gage had killed the creature.

  But if it wasn’t necessary, he didn’t do it.

  Gage flicked to another fight when the one he was watching had ended, and watched the next opponent. He liked watching how different species acted. It wasn’t always possible to know what they would do – they didn’t all act the way other creatures of the same race did. But it did help with Gage’s predictions. It helped him to know how they would generally act.

  His predictions were a combination of quick thinking and knowledge. Quick thinking was natural. He mathematically worked out what the next strategic move would be in a matter of seconds.

  But knowledge was what made Gage faster than the others. If he knew how the creature would react based on their genetic makeup, the calculations were even quicker. He could arrive at his conclusions at lightning speed. And there was absolutely no way that another opponent could win.

  Of course, Gage kept it to himself – he didn’t want other warriors, especially those of the Qai race, to figure out his technique. It was why he was the best warrior from his race, and practically undefeated in any of the championships.

  It was satisfying to know that he was the best.

  Chapter Three

  Amelia

  Amelia sat in the spaceship, feeling it rumble beneath her, waiting to wake up. This was all definitely a dream, but it was getting more bizarre by the minute.

  The aliens – what else could they be? – stood opposite her, pointing their weapons at her, but they didn’t do anything else. They merely stared and communicated with each other in a strange clicking language.

  Amelia knew they were communicating. She had studied insects most of her adult life, and it wasn’t hard to know that they were talking to each other.

  Of course, insects communicated on a much more basic level than these creatures did. But they weren’t exactly insects like what she had studied so far, were they?

  As long as Amanda convinced herself that it was a dream, she could keep the fear at bay. It was difficult – despite thinking that it had to be a dream, fear threatened to paralyze her. It was what had stopped her from running back into the apartment and shutting the door behind her so that they couldn’t get to her.

  Although… Thinking back to the hole that the weapon had left in her bedroom wall, perhaps the closet wouldn’t have offered her any protection at all.

  Now, her fear stopped her from trying to scream for help, trying to fight back and get off the spacecraft, even from trying to communicate with them.

  The latter was because she knew it was pointless. She didn’t think that they understood her, and she knew that she didn’t understand them. Trying to negotiate her release would be pointless.

  But that was a matter of logical thinking. If an attempt to do something would definitely fail, why try in the first place?

  Although the spacecraft had windows, there was very little to see. It was as if they were blacked out. Or, perhaps, it was just the night sky. Amelia stood, lifting herself out of the seat, trying to see out the window. But at the smallest movement, one of the creatures waved its weapon at her. She didn’t understand what it was saying, but the clicking was a little more aggressive than before and she had a feeling she was being reprimanded for something.

  Immediately, she sat back down again. When she did, the creature relaxed.

  Clearly, they had taken her hostage. She had been abducted.

  God, the thought of being abducted by an alien race was completely absurd. These things didn’t happen. Amelia had always thought the people who believed in aliens were pathetic. Species from another planet?

  There was no scientific evidence that proved the notion. Not as far as astronomy had developed at least. After all, they had created telescopes that could look lightyears into the universe, and there had been no intelligent life as far as they had been able to explore.

  That didn’t mean that the universe ended there – there was so much more that remained unexplored. But the scientists had deduced that since there was no intelligent life for as far as they could see, it stood to reason that there wasn’t any intelligent life out there.

  Well, they had been wrong, hadn’t they? And scientists hated to know that they were wrong.

  No, Amelia thought, shaking her head. They weren’t wrong. She was just dreaming.

  Although, she was starting to wonder more and more if this was truly a dream. It felt so real, and dreams didn’t go like this, not hers anyway. Dreams didn’t feel like it was really happening. It was always extremely bizarre in an inexplicable way. This was absolutely crazy, but somehow, it made sense.

  As soon as Amelia accepted that it might be real, fear grew inside her. It grew in the pit of her stomach like a ball of tension and it took over her body, rendering her immobile again. Her throat tightened and she struggled to breathe. She swallowed hard again and again, but it felt like something was caught in her throat. She clutched the edge of her seat with both hands, so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

  Why had they come for her? What were they going to do with her?

  Her mind started racing. If she was being abducted, someone would know that she was gone. Doctor Malcolm, for instance. He was expecting her at the airport.

  But no one else would know that she was missing. She was set to fly off to a remote island for two years. Her friends and family had already said their goodbyes. Amelia had told them that it was likely that she wouldn’t contact them very often.

  It could be months before they realized something was wrong. If Doctor Malcolm didn’t say anything at all. But he would, wouldn’t he? He would at least let them know that Amelia had never arrived at the airport, right?

  The more she thought about it, the more panicked Amelia became. She envisioned that no one would notice that she was gone, no one would care that she had disappeared from the face of the earth. She had never been very popular or well-liked. She never had many people in her life because work consumed most of her time.

  She was essentially a hermit, although there were ce
rtain things that she did – certain people she checked in with from time to time.

  Still, it could take a very long time before anyone realized that something was wrong. Amelia had become silent for weeks on end before.

  How much she hated that she did that now. She had always accepted that she was an introvert, and she had been irritated with people who had initially wanted her to check in with them from time to time.

  Now, for the first time, she wished she had.

  Because even if they did realize she was missing, no one would even think that an alien race had abducted her, that she had been taken away in a spacecraft. No one would know where to look.

  Amelia would become one of those missing persons on the bulletin boards in police stations, people who were never found again, cases that were never solved. Her family would never have closure.

  Stop it, Amelia scolded herself. She was falling into a negative spiral and her thoughts were only dragging her down more and more. She couldn’t allow that. She couldn’t become so terrified that she couldn’t do anything to escape.

  Because if she really had been abducted, that would be the next step. She would not be… She didn’t even know what they wanted her to be, why they had abducted her in the first place.

  Now was the time to start thinking straight. That was something Amelia did very well. She would focus on her surroundings, take in as much information as possible, and use it to find a way to save herself. If no one else knew that she was missing, it was up to her.

  The tremor ripped her out of her thoughts. The spaceship shuddered beneath her, and Amelia craned her neck to see out the window since the creatures wouldn’t allow her to stand.

  Through the window, she could see stars and blackness. The stars seemed to surround them, and it was, in fact, an incredible view. She had a feeling that they were immersed in them.

  That didn’t make sense. But she was trapped in a spacecraft, it wasn’t a car or a plane or anything like that.