Love of Olympia- Tournament of Stars

by Kennedy King

  “No.”

  “Then you’re off duty. You don’t need your uniform. Matter of fact… Later, I’m going to have something new for you atomized and sent in,” said Galia. She wandered over to Deidra. Her hands wandered up the girl’s waist, over her chest. Deidra almost flinched away before Galia grasped the buttons that bound the collar together. She popped the top two.

  “What are you doing?” Deidra let out. Galia let out another button. It was just enough to pop Deidra’s breasts from their tight hiding place. They rested comfortably in the cup of her uniform top. It showed the slightest hint of cleavage.

  “Look at you. You don’t even realize,” Galia shook her head, “I’m sorry to tell you this, Deidra, but you’re a woman. Might as well get some use out of it. People will tell you more, when you ask, if you seem human. So pretend, alright?” She opened one more button, then backed up from Deidra to inspect her work. “Mm, too much. You can button that one back up. Now, let your hair down, but pull it back. That’s it!” She trumpeted. The heat brought a rosy tint into the tan of Deidra’s cheeks again. She caught a glimpse of herself in the room’s iron-framed mirror. She almost checked to see who else was in the room with them.

  The only piece of information they dug up at dinner was that no one knew anything about the Terra Eagle’s interest in Deidra. She and her crew hadn’t let a drop of their intentions spill, aside from what was shared with Devin. Deidra did find, however, that Galia’s wardrobe treatment had worked. Eyes stuck on her longer than ever before. Without the long gray coat to hide most of her body, people seemed to actually see Deidra. She wasn’t sure why, but a smirk had infected her face, which just wouldn’t fade. None watched her longer than Galia’s first mate, Rey. The way he talked to Galia, with such bold suggestion and abandon for her rank, told Deidra they were more than comrades, no matter what Galia said.

  “Hey, Deidra,” Rey said suddenly. She noticed at once that she’d been slouching, and sat up at attention. Mingling with people that’d swung blades and clubs at her less than twenty-four hours ago had proven to be more exhausting than Deidra had even dared imagine. As was common in the thick of the Olympia Gold, though, fringe groups were starting to develop. Combatants that had taken an injury, who couldn’t comfortably sit across from their would-be killers. Deidra, herself, would have been as far from everyone but the Dreamweaver crew, if she could. She couldn’t deny, though, that she shared with Galia a certain intrigue in the Terra Eagle’s scheme. “Deidra?” Right, Rey, she remembered.

  “Mm?” Deidra mumbled.

  “You’re falling asleep again. Why don’t you go get some coffee, or go up to rest?” Rey suggested.

  “Coffee,” Deidra slurred. She stumbled out of her chair, and back to the buffet in the complete opposite direction of any caffeinated treat.

  “Adorable, isn’t she? Like a kitten with a knife,” Galia mused, chin in her palm.

  “Is that what she is to you, G? A pet?” Rey let out what he’d been holding back until she was out of earshot. “If she is, your pet’s going to die.” Galia forgave him this once with the stab of a knife just beside his unflinching hand. Just close enough to remind him who the captain was.

  “She’s a member of the crew, Rey,” Galia decreed. He leaned back, arms crossed, and nodded.

  “First of all: your tough bitch act isn’t gonna work here. Never has - I’ve known you too long,” Rey teased, “Second: you like her.”

  “Obviously, I like her, you moron. I wouldn’t have brought her on the crew if I didn’t at least like the girl,” said Galia, not to be presumed about.

  “That’s not what I mean and you know it,” said Rey. No sooner than his lips closed again, both of his hands shot up in surrender. By the time they got there, Galia’s knife tip pointed at his chest.

  “Your personal business is none of mine, but… she’s not built for this. If you want her to stick around, you’ve got to show her the ropes.” Galia drew her knife back, laughing.

  “And what do you think I planned to spend these next three days on?” she said. Rey let his hands back down, slow, so as not to enrage his captain even further.

  “Alright, alright. I was just making sure. Listen, if you didn’t want someone checking in on you once in a while, you wouldn’t keep me around,” Rey reminded her. Galia turned her knife to the pork on her plate instead, smirking.

  “Exactly. Everyone’s here for a reason. Deidra included. Give her a chance. Trust me. You’ll see,” said Galia. That was around the time she noticed Deidra slumped over with her head on the wall by the desserts. “Damnit,” she sighed.

  “I’m sure I will… you better make sure everyone does. They’re nervous, after what happened in the Bangbox. We’re down two now,” said Rey.

  “Yeah, I know,” Galia bit. She certainly didn’t need reminding that Delia and Crow hadn’t yet woken from their comas. “You still never told me how it happened.”

  “I… just don’t ask me to tangle with that guy again,” Rey said, eyes staring over Galia’s shoulder, like he was lurking right there.

  “Guy?”

  “Daniel. It was Daniel. Chased us down. At first, I thought he was trying to stop us from getting to the center, but… once he got his hands on Delia… he just kept slamming her against the wall. With one hand.”

  “Daniel. The guy in the suit?” Galia marveled, slack-jawed. Rey shot a look both ways, to make sure he wasn’t right there.

  “Yeah. Crow told me to run for it, for the bonus, and I did. Daniel… didn’t come after me. He was after them. I don’t even know what he did to Crow, but he’s got a dent in his forehead the size of a baseball.” he said.

  “Right. Steer clear of that guy,” Galia shuddered. She got up to retrieve the now drooling Deidra, but stopped long enough to plant a hand on Rey’s shoulder. He flinched. “Delia and Crow knew what they were signing up for. They made their choice, and the best thing we can do for them is to carry on. Whatever’s wrong with them, we can fix with the Gold Medal.” reassured Galia. She went, without hearing Rey mutter:

  “No one signs up for that.”

  Their first training session replayed behind Deidra’s eyelids several times the next night. Galia had shown her exactly how to use the shock-knife she’d given her for the Bangbox. There was more to it than a sharp taser. There was a spray nozzle in the hilt, after all, that deployed a liquid conductor on the press of a switch under the guard. Deidra practiced her swings wide to get the feel for slinging arcs of the stuff at Galia, for demonstration. All it took was a second, different button press to charge the misty arc with sparks. Deidra gasped with delight the first time she completed the procedure. Swing, switch, shock, as Galia said, and purple plasma bolts jumped from her blade to her imaginary foes.

  The triumph came and went. What was left, afterward, was apprehension. Deidra had so much to learn in the three-day break for combatants from the Olympia’s challenges. She awoke on day two to realize it was too much. There was no way Galia could teach her complete combat readiness in so short a time.

  “You ready?” her captain asked that morning when they woke in beds on opposite sides of another luxury hotel room. This one didn’t seem to have a particular theme, aside from modern convenience. The walls were solid silver, the floor a lush carpet. There were a few flowering plants of red, orange, and peach in the corners of the room. A viewing window overlooked a rushing hoverway through spectator hotspots.

  “Ready for what?” inquired Deidra after a pensive moment, “How do you know what to train me for, when we don’t know what the next challenge is?” Galia rested a hand on each poised hip.

  “Well, aren’t we contemplative this morning?” she laughed, “I’m trying to get to ready for… a little bit of anything. It’s the best we can do. We don’t exactly have the time for a three-credit course.”

  “No, but… what if we could get more specific?” Deidra realized.

  “Well then, we should… what are you cooking up in that pretty lit
tle crockpot of yours?” asked Galia. Deidra leaped up to pace the room as she retraced her steps of thought.

  “I was thinking… the Terra Eagle knew about the first arena before the match. Devin said it was because she had so much experience with the Olympia. I have a friend who’s got as much experience as she does, if not more. Maybe she knows a thing or two,” said Deidra. She’d never thought to ask until now.

  “You...” Galia shook her head, as if incapable of accepting it, “You have a friend?” she couldn’t resist the prod. Deidra rolled her eyes, and headed for the door.

  “Come on,” she said. Galia smiled when she didn’t bother grabbing her jacket.

  “Clarabelle, this is Galia. Galia, Clarabelle,” Deidra introduced the two most important women in her life. The one that had kept her alive until the Olympia Gold met the one that had done the job since. The barkeep squinted at the rugged captain, up and down, for a full thirty seconds. For that time, the rest of the Forge’s patrons hardly mattered. Her eyes opened, then lightened with the wrinkles of a smile.

  “You took my girl in. Kept her kicking. Thank you,” said Clarabelle. She plopped a tankard on the bar and tipped a pitcher of something bright blue over it. Galia reached back for her wallet, but stopped at the barkeep’s raised hand and shaking head.

  “Keep the taps open, and we’ve got an arrangement here,” Galia smirked. Deidra tensed. She couldn’t imagine a struggle between them, past Clarabelle pinching Galia’s ear and the two rolling across the floor. Thankfully it didn’t come to that. Deidra flinched instead at a sound she’d never heard before. Clarabelle’s laughter.

  “What can I do for you girls?” she said, when she’d managed to calm herself.

  “We were wondering,” Deidra leaned close over the counter, “if you knew anything about the next challenge.”

  “Donny!” Clarabelle barked. It was the most he’d ever been called to work during a single Olympia Gold. Clarabelle left him to deal with the drunken masses, and took Deidra and Galia to the back of the kitchen. “I do happen to know the next one because I’ve seen it before. It’s an event they used a few Olympias back. It’s called Thruway.”

  “Thr… Thu… Thruway?” Deidra choked. Clarabelle’s eyes fluttered. She wiped them to hide just how much it hurt her - the answer to the question she’d never wanted to ask: Deidra did remember. Clarabelle cleared her throat and straightened up.

  “It’s a freefall through the entire planet, using artificial gravity. Six-hundred miles of melee combat. Blunt weapons only,” she told Galia, specifically. Deidra already knew, she saw now. “Whoever’s conscious at the end wins the bonus for their team.”

  “Wow,” Galia marveled, “Brutal… even for this crowd. Well, at least now we know what to focus on,” she patted Deidra’s shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Deidra muttered, numb. Clarabelle’s voice bounced off her eardrums muffled, as if through a balled up towel.

  “Here, take this,” she said, pulling something from a crate way in the back of the storeroom. “This will help you keep track of everything. I modded it a little, so never turn sensitivity past sixty percent, understand? The radiation will fry you.” Deidra nodded, numb. Her hands reached out to receive it automatically. It had a little heft to it, her hands remembered. It looked like a helmet of some kind, her eyes noted, through periphery. Her brain would recall none of it. Her mind was stuck on that abominable freefall.

  “I’ve… got to get back to the bar before Donny sells us out. He hasn’t mastered the art of watering down quite yet,” said Clarabelle. She gave a mock little curtsey and vanished.

  “Hey, everything alright?” Galia asked, when Deidra stood there, staring into space as if the barkeep never left.

  “It will be,” said Deidra. She snapped free of the funk with a new fire in her eye, one Galia had yet to see. Not just fear-fueled adrenaline. Rage. She shouldered her way past her captain, “We’ve got a day and a half. Let’s go.”

  Chapter Eleven: A Flash of Talons

  “I’m still not sure…” Fogan muttered between the silent, agape mouth of a yawn, “Why we had to come out here at the asscrack of dawn.” She twitched upright when her captain piped up from behind her.

  “Glad you brought it up, Fogan!” Galia shouted, so the whole crew would hear. They were well out past the modern metropolis of silver towers and shimmering, magnetic hover streets around the Thruway. The crew of the Dreamweaver had exchanged the comfortable sheets of their heated rooms and the lulling trickle of water features that emptied into their exquisite floors for the chill of the morning in the grassy fields around the Forge. It was the only place Galia had scoped out where spectators or other teams might not spot them from the right angle. “It’s been brought to my attention that some of you are concerned for the safety of our newest member,” Gali announced, much to Deidra’s flushed cheeks. “What do we say on this ship, gang?”

  “If one of us is in trouble, then the crew is in trouble,” voices droned back from across the slumping line of stair-sailers. The sound of it, however tired and off-key, put an odd warmth in Deidra’s chest.

  “Good, you remember. If you forget every last one of my rules, you remember that one,” Galia said. She let a crisp breath of wind take over for her voice for a few seconds. “Now, Delia and Crow are down, and we lost one. It’s less than most have lost already, but more than we ever have before… Carol.” Galia bowed her head in respect for the woman, the still-fresh wound in her crew. “Yes, we picked up Deidra just after. Make no mistake. She is no place holder. I expect her to work, to do her part in and off the Dreamweaver. To protect you all, and me. I expect all of you to protect her. That’s why we’re here, at dawn’s glorious asscrack. To train for the next challenge, together. We could all use a refresher. A little team bonding, fists to foreheads.” At this Galia fell back to give her voice a rest. Rey filled the void her projecting voice left behind.

  “Alright everyone, pair up!” he issued, “Fogan, you’re with Cap’. Demetri and Kostic.” That left only Deidra and himself without a partner. He smirked at her, “You’re with me, sunshine.”

  “Bri-uh-bring it on,” Deidra sputtered, like a dragon testing its fire for the first time. Rey snorted.

  “Appreciate the effort, but cocky’s not your look,” he said. That gave Deidra just the boot she needed for when Galia announced:

  “Knuckles up!”

  Rey and Deidra’s fists popped up at the ready as one. She jammed the switch on the ends of her cylindrical weapons just like the captain had shown her. A shell of pressure emitted around Deidra’s fists, trapping the particles in the air as a solid barrier. Invisible gauntlets Galia had called them. Everyone in the crew had a pair. Everyone clicked them on. “We’ve got other weapons, but those will be easy to lose grip on in a six-hundred-mile freefall. These are easy to hold. You can make a fist, you can use these. They pack a solid punch, so they’re a solid bet. Alright. Beat the tar out of each other.” Galia’s first lesson commenced - to stay on your toes. She dove at Fogan without warning. The enormous gunner Demetri lugged a fist for the pigtailed tech operator, Kostic. Deidra sprung for Rey.

  Surprised as he was at her initiative, he sidestepped her blow. As per the captain’s instruction, he held nothing back from the hammer of his fist on the back of her head. Things went fuzzy for Deidra. Her knee drove down into the grass, but so too did her other foot. She used it to kick back. Deidra flung herself right back at her opponent, swinging wildly with both invisible gauntlets. One of them missed Rey’s nose by a hair. He swept his ankle, which took out both of Deidra’s legs. No sooner than her back crunched the grass did Rey fall on her. His pressurized fist impressed itself in the green blades instead of Deidra. She rolled a foot over, onto her knees.

  Deidra launched again, fist cracking out like it was loaded on a spring. Rey’s neck craned away from it. A simple grasp of her wrist was enough to unbalance her with her own force. Deidra stumbled straight into the freight train of Rey’s knuckles
. Her head cocked back, and right back down. She couldn’t decide between the splitting delusions of her blurry foe, so Deidra picked one and swung. She passed through Rey’s phantom, and winced for the counterstrike. She was surprised to find a gentle arm around her stomach when she stumbled, rather than another clock to the skull.

  “Alright, sunshine. On your feet,” said Rey, “You know how to take a damn punch, that’s for sure. You know how to bounce back, too. That’s good, but you’re no good to us floating stiff, got it? Don’t be afraid to fall back a second to get your bearings again.”

  “Go-got it,” Deidra sniffled. She wiped a streak of scarlet across her face from the faucet of her nose. She shook her head until Rey condensed into a solid image again - one she intended to see with his back on the grass. She made it all of five swings, and even threw one of his away, before Galia’s first lesson concluded.

  “Knuckles up!” she barked. Everyone took the ready position, but none struck. They waited on the edge of a strike until Galia went on to the second lesson of the day. “I see good things happening, but we all know by now that none of us have just one opponent. It’s a free-for-all out there. You’ve got to switch between strategies as per who you’re up against. Rapidly. Let’s practice that. Doesn’t matter who to, when I say switch, you switch. Do your best to blindside someone, and not to get blindsided yourself. Switch!”

  Galia went for Deidra. She didn’t have a chance to see where Rey or anyone else went. She hardly had a chance to get her invisible gauntlets up. Deidra ducked under a blow. She went for a jab at Galia’s gut. By the time Deidra’s fist got there, her target wasn’t. Galia repeated the maneuver intended for her. Her invisible gauntlet buried itself in Deidra’s fluttering stomach.

  “Why are you doing this?” said Galia. She shrunk back from Deidra’s leg sweep.

  “What?”

  “Why are you doing this?” Galia repeated, with the addition of a punch. Deidra took a page from Rey’s skillset and swept the strike to the side of her. Her captain was barely able to hide how impressed she was as she reclaimed her balance. Deidra swung and missed.