Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  I didn’t know what to say, so, in an unusual twist of circumstance, I kept my mouth shut for the rest of the walk to the Hall.

  As we arrived, the LED on Artemis’ jumpsuit began to beep. She glanced at it, and an excited look came across her face.

  “Oh, goody,” she said, “Grizz wants us to meet him in the Armory this morning.”

  “Cool,” I replied with my own excitement. The Armory sounded fun. “What kind of weapons are there?

  “Every implement of death and destruction ever devised!” she squealed.

  “Bullets, lasers, and bombs!” I sang to the tune of Lions, Tigers, and Bears, “Oh my!”

  We walked down several hallways and got on an elevator that descended several stories into the ground. It opened into a football field-sized room that apparently housed World War Three.

  All manner of aliens occupied individual stalls that lined the wall to the right and fired all manner of alien weapons at holographic targets down range. To the left, the room was broken up into small cube-shaped areas that were about a hundred feet by a hundred feet and were filled with obstacles. The aliens inside each one were met with various holographic enemies as they ran through tactical drills of all sorts. They must have had some kind of sound baffling technology, because even though there was enough shooting going on to make the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan seem tame, I couldn’t hear any of it.

  I followed Artemis out of the elevator and through the Armory as I tried not to gawk in amazement.

  “Grizz reserved us a private Battle Room for this morning,” Artemis said as we walked. “I think he has a small treat up his trouser leg.”

  I barely stifled a full-on guffaw at that one and decided I was just going to stop correcting her for a while because I had grown to like her Artemis-isms better than the originals.

  We passed one of the cubicles, and I noticed the statuesque red-headed alien with the awesome body armor from the fight at the Breach as she geared up for a shooting run. She wore a pair of skin-tight, electric blue leggings, a cropped halter-top bra in the same color and an awesome pair of combat boots with wide, stacked heels that were as sexy as they were functional. She was in the process of strapping her armor on, and it literally stopped me in my tracks.

  I hadn’t been able to notice the other night due to the chaos and the body armor, but she had an incredible body. Like a world-class CrossFit athlete or too-tall gymnast. Powerful, muscular and explosive-looking but still intensely feminine. Her stomach, which glistened with a thin sheen of sweat, was just shy of a six pack and gave the impression that she didn’t have vanity gym rat muscle but instead had been honed from moving heavy shit hard and fast. Her legs were solid, shapely, and led up to an ass that quite frankly looked like it could crush walnuts made out of titanium. The halter-top bra strained at the seams to hold her breasts in, as the firm, round tops struggled to break free. I very much hoped that it was going to lose its epic battle.

  I pulled to a stop, completely incapable of doing anything other than staring. She strapped the sectional armor I’d seen her in the other night to her thighs, forearms, and shins. Finally, she shrugged into a full chest protector that would be best described as a medieval knight meets Robotech and snapped it into place with several buckles. After a quick check of the straps and connectors, she walked over to a rack with her back to us. She made several motions with her hands as if she were plugging something in, placed a modular headpiece on, and the armor lit up with pulsing orange light that ran through previously unseen intricate, almost Celtic-looking, glyphs set within.

  When she turned back, she had a giant machine gun cannon held in both hands like she was swinging around a Space Marine smart gun right out of Aliens. The cannon was attached to her armor with a hydraulic counterbalanced arm like a steadicam. The machine gun itself was the same color as her armor and glowed with the same orange light. It was sleek and smooth with a handle near the front for her left hand and a horizontal grip for her right at the end of the weapon while the headpiece housed a sighting reticle that sat over her right eye. She mouthed something that I couldn’t hear and construct enemies appeared in her obstacle course. A smile came across her face, and she marched slowly into the fray.

  The gun spat orange energy in rapid-fire bursts. It was clearly a heavy machine gun by the way it kicked and how she had to lean into it to keep it from knocking her back with recoil. It was devastating as it blew the construct enemies to bits. She wasn’t fast, but her slow, steady pace and agility with the weapon soon laid waste to all the enemies.

  “That is Nova Kwark,” Artemis said next to me. I had been staring pretty hard and lost track of space and time.

  “Gah,” I exclaimed. “Was I gawking that bad?”

  “Yes,” she said with a chagrined smile, “you were.”

  “Sorry about that,” I apologized.

  “What for, Marc?” Artemis asked, genuinely confused.

  “I, you know?” I stammered. “I was ogling another girl.”

  “As well you should be,” she said nonplussed. “Nova is a fierce fighter from Paladin Prime, a feudal planet where her family is of noble, warrior heritage. She is a total, what is the phrase, badass bitch? Plus, she’s freaking hot.”

  “You’re not, I don’t know, jealous?” I asked nervously.

  “Marc,” she started, her voice gentle, “I am not an Earth female, although I may resemble one physically. I have no societal programming for jealousy. Few species in the universe do. When competition for a biological mate is removed, jealousy is removed with it.”

  “Oh,” I uttered, not sure if I completely believed her. “I could go and make out with her right now, and that would be cool?”

  Artemis couldn’t hold her laughter in although she tried. “Yes, Marc Havak, I would be as atomically still as frozen water. Nova might have a problem with it though. Paladinian molecular structure is four times denser than humans. She can lift up almost five times her body weight.”

  “That is good to know,” I responded with a bit of a gulp.

  “Come on, goofball,” she urged, “Grizz is waiting on us.”

  I pulled my gaze from Nova, who was now bashing construct bag guys with the machine gun as if it were a lance and followed Artemis to a series of sliding doors along the far wall.

  We went through a doorway that opened into a smaller version of the room we’d just left. It was five hundred feet long by seven hundred feet wide and had a fifty foot ceiling with rows of weapons lockers against the right wall. There were several shooting lane windows along the back wall that looked capable of handling everything from pistols to sniper rifles.

  Grizz was over by a huge weapons rack. He was in the middle of an intense conversation with a drop dead gorgeous woman dressed in a formal, dark green, military uniform. She was well over six feet tall, only a few inches shorter than Grizz, was more on the lithe as opposed to lanky side, and had white-blonde hair cut into a spiked shark-fin design that ran down the center of her head.

  As we got closer, I could see that her uniform was littered with medals and ribbons. On her right shoulder was a holographic patch of a death’s head skull with wings coming out the back set on top of two lightning bolts that shimmered with bright colors. Her eyes were bright violet and full of quiet destruction.

  She and Grizz turned their attention to Artemis and me as we walked in. The violet eyes looked me up and down once, and I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Then she said something to Grizz who laughed heartily.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked as we met them.

  “I told Grizz that I would have thought the vanquisher of fifteen Dolemidian Lure Spiders would be taller,” the woman said calmly, her voice smooth and strong.

  “Oh,” was all I could manage as I looked up at her. “What I lack in height I more than make up for in pure animal magnetism.”

  She burst out laughing. “I like him, Grizz.” She nodded at my mentor. “Cocksure arrogance in
the face of unknown potential danger. Oh, I like him a lot.”

  “It’s a gift,” I added, not positive where scoundrel Marc had come from, but glad he was here. Grizz finally pulled himself together.

  “Marc Havak, Champion of Earth, meet PoLarr Inarra,” he said as he introduced us. “PoLarr is a Val’Keerye in the Nemmidian Raider Corp, one of the most respected and feared special forces units in the galaxy. They are known colloquially as the Death Angels.”

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” I said respectfully. All arrogance aside, I had respect for someone who served for their home. “Did I hear that right? You’re a Valkyrie?”

  “Val’Keerye,” she corrected my pronunciation, “and yes, I am.”

  I could tell she wasn’t much of a boaster.

  “PoLarr is from Tartarus Major,” Artemis chimed in to fill in the blanks. “A planet in a very hostile solar system. Their interplanetary fighting force has been in existence for over two thousand years. The Val’Keerye is an airborne assault unit composed of only female soldiers who are masters of Bealach ar’Gwn.”

  “Ar’Gwn for short,” PoLarr clarified. “It translates to way of the gun. Those who practice its tenants are known as Gwn Slingers.”

  “I brought her here today to show you some principles of ar’Gwn,” Grizz explained, “I think it will complement the two combat modules you already have. Your lower trials are complete, human. The next will be your first contest in the Crucible where you are almost certain to die.”

  “Awesome,” I said excitedly, “good to know those other two things where I barely escaped were just warm-ups.”

  PoLarr walked over to the shooting range windows.

  “I want you to put a few rounds downrange so that I may see your natural style, Marc,” PoLarr said. “What type of hand weapon do you normally prefer?”

  “Um, my remote control,” I offered only half-jokingly. Artemis was the only one who found it even half-funny, so I quickly added, “I’ve shot a Glock 17 several times. Do we have one of those?”

  Artemis went over to the large gun locker, typed something into the screen on its front, and after a few seconds, a panel opened up. She brought over a small box that had a pristine-looking Glock 17 nine-millimeter pistol with three preloaded magazines.

  “We added just about every known weapon mankind has ever created to our Armory,” Artemis said as she set the box down on the waist-high shelf in front of the shooting window. “They can be anti-matter printed at your command, usually within a few seconds.”

  “That’s fucking cool,” I blurted out. “Can it do other guns and stuff?”

  “It’s programmed with over four thousand types of hand-held weapons from hundreds of different worlds,” she said with a smile.

  “We’re going to stick with ones you are familiar with for the moment, Marc,” PoLarr added. “Eventually, if you prove to have an aptitude for it, ar’Gwn can incorporate any firearm you can hold. The gun is simply an extension of your will whether it be a simple projectile weapon or a subatomic hand blaster. You are the instrument of destruction; the gun is simply a conduit.”

  “Okay,” I said as I nodded my head. I bellied up to the shooting window and a roughly human-sized target dummy appeared about twenty-five feet away. It had target rectangles drawn on the chest and head.

  “Any earmuffs?” I asked as I looked around the shelf.

  “Is that a euphemism?” Artemis asked back.

  “Not that I know of,” I replied with a smirk.

  “Your Cerebral Nano Interface will baffle the sound enough to protect your hearing and the Occuhancers can electromagnetically repel any debris from your eyes,” she explained.

  “Good to know,” I said as I picked up the Glock. I racked the slide a few times just to get a feel for how tight the action was. After dry firing it a few times, I loaded the magazine into the butt of the grip, pulled the slide back and positioned myself in a combat shooting stance, or as close to it as I could remember.

  My best friend from high school ended up going into the Marine Corps after he graduated college. After he got out, he got accepted to the DEA academy and was now a full-fledged agent. It was weird seeing the dude you used to sneak beers with as a teenager given a badge. He’d taken me to the range a few times over the years to show me some stuff that he’d learned. I hoped I would be able to remember it as I felt three pairs of appraising eyes on me.

  I took a deep, steadying breath, leaned forward and extended my arms in a two-handed grip high on the pistol. Once my arms were almost fully extended, I began squeezing the trigger slowly. The gun kicked more violently than I expected, and my round missed the target completely. It had been a long time since I’d fired a handgun. I adjusted my grip on the pistol, leaned back into my stance and began to fire off rounds methodically with about two seconds in between shots. By the tenth bullet, I had managed to dial it in pretty good and was able to put them in the rectangle at the center of mass for the target.

  When the slide locked back, I pressed the mag release and let the empty clip fall to the ground as I inserted a fresh one into the pistol. I pressed the slide release, and it slammed home with a satisfying, metallic thunk. This time as I extended my arms, I pulled the trigger faster, in quick double-taps. My grouping wasn’t the greatest, but not the worst either. For the last six, I did triple-taps which blew through the seventeen rounds in the clip in half the time as the first.

  After I ejected the spent magazine, I put the final one in, released the slide, and began shooting immediately. This time I pulled the trigger almost as fast as I could, not really aiming but trusting that the barrel was directed toward where my hand pointed. The gun locked open in five seconds. I laid it flat on the shelf and stepped back.

  PoLarr nodded as she looked me over, and a second later, my three target dummies appeared right at the front of the shooting window. The first one was all over the place. The second was better, with a few close groupings in the kill zones, but still had a fair amount of holes in random places like the shoulder or groin. The third was the best, which surprised me. I’d put fourteen shots into the center rectangle in about a four-inch group. The last three were headshots.

  “You have good fundamentals, Marc,” PoLarr commended after studying the dummies and some notes she had taken on a small tablet, “as well as excellent hand-eye coordination. You tend to anticipate the recoil which makes you push the gun forward a bit, causing shots to skew to the right. I can tell you have had some formal training.”

  “Yeah, a friend of mine,” I offered. “Military then law enforcement.”

  “All well and good,” she said as she removed her dress jacket. She wore a khaki tank top underneath that accentuated her small but perfectly shaped breasts and her toned arms. “What I’m going to try to show you is a way to let go of all the training. Forget a conscious effort. To open your mind and become one with the gun.”

  “Okay?” I said skeptically.

  “I can hear the doubt in your voice.” She smirked as she slung a double holster harness that she’d gotten from a table by the weapons locker across her hips. The harness part was made from a nylon webbing like material and had a backpack like padding at the shoulders. In the middle of the back was a gunmetal blue, metallic, oval disk about eighteen inches long, eight inches at its widest, and three inches deep. More nylon webbing held the disk firmly in place in between her shoulder blades. “I know how silly that sounds. As if I’m asking you to mate with the weapon.”

  “He would need a bigger gun,” Artemis threw out without a trace of impropriety, and I could feel heat in my cheeks as I blushed.

  “I’m sure he would, Artemis,” PoLarr said almost seductively. She’d buckled the holster, and the guns rested at the very top of her thighs, almost at the hip joint. Then thigh straps extended on their own and secured the holsters to her legs. The butts of the pistols sat just at where her hands rested at her sides. They had an Old West look to them, the grips seemed to be made
from a highly polished black wood and were custom molded to fit her hands.

  “Ar’Gwn removes the separation between Slinger and gun,” she continued to proselytize as she walked out into the large open space in the middle of the room. A construct began to form around her, a closely packed urban environment. “Skills like trigger pull, stance, alignment all fall to the wayside allowing the Slinger to adapt to any situation.”

  All of a sudden, she was rushed by five large alien creatures. Without breaking stride, she unslung her pistols, which were a cross between Old West Peacemakers and the futuristic pistol from Blade Runner, and fired off five shots so fast the bad guys didn’t even know they’d taken direct headshots until they reached her. They fell dead with confused looks on their faces.

  “Battle is chaos,” she said as she twirled the pistols like pinwheels in her hands before sliding them back into their holsters. “Rigid plans and routine training disappear as the blood and smoke arrive. Ar’Gwn is having no plan. To take each moment as it comes, in the moment, without anticipation or hesitation. To flow like astral dust on a solar current.”

  “I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I shoot motherfuckers,” I said quietly to myself.

  “Yes,” PoLarr nodded, “exactly.”

  “PoLarr,” Grizz said quietly, “I had heard tales of the Val’Keerye and thought they must have been legends embellished by the tellers. That the ‘Death Angels’ could not possibly be that fearsome. I was a fool.”

  “Legends?” PoLarr said with a grin, “No. My sisters and I are soldiers who do what we must in order to protect our homes, but if challenged, we fight as one, and that, mighty Grizz, is fearsome. Now, Marc, I believe it is your turn.”

  “Whoa,” I uttered as I brought my hands up in an ‘I give’ gesture, “there is no way I’m going to be able to do all that.”

  “Well, of course not,” PoLarr stated simply as if I’d just asked if elephants could fly, “not yet, anyway.”