by Kennedy King
“Galia!” Deidra screamed. Her captain’s mechanical gauntlet crossed the man’s face, popping his neck from the rest of him.
A golden wave of light filled the Thruway for a passing second, illuminating all that remained. The crews passed a glass showing window, straight to the core of planet Ares. It was no dense, molten ball. No, Ares was an artificial construct, held together by designs impossible anywhere else in the galaxy. What shone in the core was the Olympia Gold Medal itself. It shed its coveted light on The Terra Eagle and her gunners, Daniel, Galia, Rey, Fogan and Deidra. Then the Medal vanished above them and the Thruway swallowed them in darkness.
When their eyes adjusted, the crew of the Dreamweaver faced the flying forms of the Terra Eagle’s gunners. She strafed and jabbed against Daniel, still, but her crew was too smart to be blindsided. Galia and the others braced seconds before a man and woman in jumpsuits the colors of their captain’s exosuit collided with them. Fogan’s katana met the energy club of the woman. Galia flinched away from the man’s mechanical knuckles, not unlike hers. They grazed the edge of her shoulder. Before she could counter, the man kicked off of her chest to float backward. He spun with the grace of a dolphin and snapped his gauntlet across Fogan’s head. He drifted back, out for the count. Rey descended from above, unheard. He clobbered the man straight down into the oblivion of sleep.
The woman clashed clubs with Rey which knocked her back into the snare of Deidra’s whip. She snatched the woman’s arm which tugged her in. The two collided, baton on club, only to be catapulted back from each other by the kinetic shockwave. Deidra flung back into Rey’s arms, while the woman met Galia’s steel knuckles on the back of her head. Her face snapped down, mind free of the Thruway. Just when the Dreamweaver crew thought they had a breath to take, a black and green blur tore between Rey and Deidra. She took out Daniel, was a fleeting thought they shared.
The Terra Eagle’s jetted speed separated them at once. Galia choked back her urge to charge in. Whether it was Rey, Deidra or anyone else in the Eagle’s eye, she knew better than to try and help from the front. She only hoped Rey could hold out long enough.
The Eagle planted a robotic fist under Rey’s ribs. The strike lifted him with a cough of blood. It also put him in the perfect position to club the top of her helmet. Even glazed with steel multerium, his weapon did little more than jostle the Eagle an inch. She responded with a left hook that spun Rey’s face sideways and set him adrift for the rest of the match. Just enough time, Galia thought. Her piston-loaded gauntlet flung into the back of the Terra Eagle’s helmet. It jerked forward, right into the mechanical punch of Deidra, who’d taken a similar glove from the Eagle’s own gunner. A single crack ran down the side of her visor. The Terra Eagle’s head bucked forward, then back inside her helmet. When Galia and Deidra retreated, she floated right where she was, motionless between them. The two exchanged the briefest smirks of victory before Deidra’s visor picked up activity behind her captain.
“Watch out!” She spun just in time for a bloody-knuckled blow from Daniel. Galia’s cheek rocketed back, her body close to follow, just before her reeling mind. The ever-smirking man was covered in splatters of rosy human paint. Whether it was his was impossible to discern, though his suit had suffered minimal scuffs. Galia straightened up and glided back to Daniel and Deidra.
It took alternating whips and blows from Galia and Deidra just to keep Daniel from striking back. The tips of their weapons grazed his suit, but never got any closer. His eyes darted between Galia and Deidra rapidly, like he was reading a compelling part of a good book. Then, in the middle of the storm of strikes, Daniel’s leg snapped up. It thrust into Galia’s chest hard enough to fling her into her only remaining partner. She tried to bounce back, but Deidra held her firm for a moment.
“Try to grab him. Hold on,” she whispered. Only in the intense battery did the words of Clarabelle surface in her mind. With this, Deidra sent her captain back. Daniel threw his punch. Galia opened the palm of her steel gauntlet to catch it. She felt her bones creak, even through the armor, but held the strike steady. She grasped his shoulder with his other hand.
Deidra flew up from the side. She slammed her energy helmet over Daniel’s head. She turned the knob on its side until the reversed display on the visor read “100%”. Deidra retreated an inch. Waves of translucent yellow radiation behind the visor collided and spiraled around Daniel’s bewildered head. Galia felt his fist loosen in her mechanical grasp. She felt his shoulder behind relax. His body jostled, and his lips opened for the first time. His smirk turned to a grimace of perfect white teeth. He fought through it with clenched fists, to the girls’ horror. Galia cocked back her gauntlet as far as it would go, then farther with Deidra’s help. She put it straight through the visor, into Daniel’s temple. His eyes clamped shut. His body drifted backward. Still, his open mouth looked a bit like a smirk.
“We… we did it,” Deidra whimpered at last. She and Galia plunged freely through Ares, in a cloud of loose bodies. Some of them would wake up on the other side. The others would join the names etched in the crystal towers of the Reverie. Galia’s somber eyes climbed to Demitri and Kostic, their blood scattered in falling rain that would catch up to them at the end of the Thruway. With the Gold Medal as the midpoint, she knew only that they had less than three hundred miles to fall.
“Who’d… have… thought…” Galia panted. She floated idly towards Deidra, only to pause when a voice boomed between them. Through the whole Thruway.
“What a show, what a show, folks. And now, a chance for the Dreamweaver to claim the bonus,” announced Cybil.
“A chance?” Galia echoed, “I thought… if we were the last ones awake…” Deidra’s eyes lit with the irony of understanding something she never could, at long last. A missing piece popped into place. Kayn had loved her father, fool that he was. She knew that. It was what prevented her from ever understanding why she had turned on him in the Thruway. Until now.
“We have to be the last one awake, Galia. Well, one of us,” Deidra realized. She slipped off the gauntlet she’d stolen. She let the whip drift up from her grasp. Deidra let her arms out at her sides, eyes closed. “Let’s get this bonus. Go on. You hit harder.” She cracked an eyelid when Galia snorted, then devolved into downright hilarity.
“Oh man,” Galia laughed while she rifled through her pockets. “You should see yourself right now. The self-sacrificing pose, the closed eyes and everything. That’s sweet, Deidra.” By the end of the sentence, Galia had produced a tiny tin bottle from her pockets. A word Deidra couldn’t make out was engraved on its side. Galia dug a finger down inside it to gather a handful of glossy purple pills. She jammed the cap on the bottle, the bottle in her pocket, and about eight pills down her throat. She swallowed.
“Galia- what are you-”
“See you on the other… side…” Galia’s stomach did its work, and she went to the blackness. The only place she wasn’t in pain.
Chapter Thirteen: Lost Dreams
A moment of silence spread across planet Ares while Galia drifted off to sleep. Never before had an Olympia bonus been won with such peace and grace. It took them a moment to catch up until Cybil announced:
“The bonus goes to the Dreamweaver for last combatant standing!” Spectators erupted into unprecedented applause. Gold Standard workers felt the rumble from it two stories down in service tunnels. Deidra heard its periodic rush as rings of audience booths passed her by. She didn’t have a chance to enjoy it, though. Not with the bodies of her crewmates floating around her. Not with Galia full of enough taxotrol to put down someone three times her weight. There were exactly two things on Deidra’s to-do list just then.
One: swallow the fact that Kayn’s betrayal of her father was hardly as straightforward as she once thought. Two: float over to Galia and hug her. She held on until the Thruway emptied out in the zero-gravity normalization sphere on the other side of Ares.
There was a programmed single-day gap between the
Thruway and the next event in the fifty-sixth Olympia Gold. The Jousting Grounds, Clarabelle told Deidra, after a hearty slap on the back for her ingenuity with the helmet. There, too, followed the shock and horror that Daniel woke up from his radiation nap as if nothing had happened. But that was a matter out of their hands. The Jousting Grounds they could do something about. They could prepare. While most every other surviving combatant in the Olympia cheered and chugged with their biggest fans around Ares, Deidra waited by the side of Galia’s bed.
“She’ll hate that you didn’t come out with us while you had the chance. G doesn’t like being waited on,” Rey warned her before he and Fogan left for the Forge. Deidra waved him off and stayed. She didn’t have a chance to test his prophecy for another three hours, making a solid fourteen since Galia knocked herself out. For the first time in so long, she actually slept. She rested, without nightmares or coughing fits. When her blurry eyes cracked open, the first thing out of her mouth was:
“What the hell… are you doing here?”
“Rey was right,” Deidra chuckled.
“‘Course he was, whatever he told you. Man’s known me longer than anyone. Why didn’t you-”
“Let’s skip the tough captain bit,” Deidra cut in, with just enough gall to stun Galia for a moment. Even bedridden, her eyes glowed with intimidating purpose. But Deidra wouldn’t be scared off. Not anymore. “Want to tell me why you’ve got enough taxotrol to kill a child?”
“That?” Galia laughed, a weak finger rising to the silver bottle on her rocky nightstand. Everything in their latest hotel was made of ornamental stone, to match the theme of their next challenge. “In case there’s something wrong with your eyes… I’m not a child.”
“You’re sick. Really sick. Why didn’t you tell me?” said Deidra.
“Sick? Everything’s an ailment in these times! People flying through space, bringing all kinds of stuff through the door. Doctors are having a field day. They could diagnose a stubbed toe and prescribe you something for it. Everyone’s on something,” Galia waved her off. She tried to sit up, but Deidra stopped her by scooting closer. Galia felt her frustration in waves of heat through her blankets.
“I know a bit about pain medication. Gold Standard and all. Taxotrol… isn’t meant to be taken like that. I honestly don’t know how you’re trying to sit up right now,” said Deidra. Galia’s eyes darted for the door, then the window. Any opening to grant her most base instinct: escape. Deidra’s hands slamming on the bed, on either side of her hips, stranded her there.
“I’ve… built up a tolerance,” said Galia. She was surprised how heavy the words were, how they dragged her eyes down as soon as she let them out. She couldn’t look up from her lap. “And a dependency.”
“Does… the rest of the crew know how sick you are?” Deidra asked. Galia puffed a lock of hair from her eyes, like it was nothing, like it was a ridiculous inquiry. She knew, deeper than her conscious mind, that she was the most ridiculous thing in the room.
“Rey does. Hey, how about we skip the ten-years-too-late intervention, too? At least for now,” pleaded Galia. Her skin regained some of its pallor with a few deep breaths. Her vibrance literally blew Deidra away at least from the bed, when Galia threw off her sheets. “I’d say you’re long overdue for a tour of your ship.”
It was a couple of minutes before Deidra could get anything out of her half-open mouth. The Dreamweaver’s interior was the only thing sleeker than its glossy silver-trimmed shell. Reflective rings shimmered on the underside of each plump, velvet seat. Supermagnets that emitted the faintest visible distortion held them up from the deck. The Dreamweaver’s bridge was suspended on a level with their massive, reinforced viewing screen. Deidra leaned over the edge to see if it was just an illusion. The working guts of the ship were, in fact, visible below, connected by a network of walkways and staircases. She looked closer to see a holographic safety net, should the crew somehow be jostled from their seats. They would never fall further than a foot, but it made for excellent damage assessment. The ease of access was unprecedented, even compared to some of the Gold Standard ships Deidra had serviced.
“What’s… the legal designation on this thing?” Deidra managed, once wanderlust had carried her to every corner of the bridge. She ran a hand over the seat she would take over for Demitri. She gazed down the barrels of the cannons and turrets on the other end of the controls through thick glass.
“Commercial freighter,” Galia told her. She plopped into the cockpit and nestled deep in the cushions, a grin on her face. There wasn’t a place in the galaxy she felt more at home. “Military outpost rations delivery.” Deidra plopped her in her own chair and spun to face her captain, brow cocked in suspicion.
“And what do you really do?”
“Arms dealing,” Galia shrugged, “You’d be surprised how many officers are willing to push their allowed three percent losses on delivery, to make a few thousand credits… does that change your opinion of us? Of… me?” Deidra searched her captain’s face for a sign of deceit, for sarcasm. For the first time since she’d known Galia, she looked honest. After all, the act she played this part for was finally coming to a close.
“You didn’t invent this game. You’re just playing it. Like all of us,” said Deidra. Galia smiled, and laughed, like it was all a joke. She kicked her chair into a spin. She wiped her face hard with her sleeve, while she faced away. When she turned round to face Deidra again, she looked anything but joking. Lines had formed in her face she usually hid with makeup.
“I didn’t always. I wanted to be a WBO pilot,” Galia told her, “I wanted to see the worlds too far for stars to shine on, to dive in caves and climb on the backs of giants, like every kid. Unlike most kids, though, that spark didn’t burn out when I got older. The dirtiness, the difficulty… it didn’t scare me. Maybe that’s why I…” Galia choked on the words. Deidra never figured her for a sharer, but she didn’t know this was the first time she’d shared this story. The only true one. Ever.
“Galia, if it’s too much… you don’t have to...”
“I should have been afraid,” Galia forced herself to say. If she didn’t now, she might not get the chance. Not with how much taxotrol it took for her to get through the day. “If I was, I wouldn’t have wandered into that… thing’s nest, to get a research sample. But I was still a cadet. I wanted to impress everybody. I wanted to show my mom and my sister that I could. But it bit me.”
“What did?”
“That’s irony, isn’t it? I blacked out as soon as it happened, and no one else was fool enough to go back to the nest after that. I remember… wings… and sharp limbs, like a spider’s. But it’s an undocumented species. No studies - no cure. Not for the disease anyway. But it was mostly contained to my lungs, back then. ” Galia explained, “Now… well, I haven’t exactly been in for a checkup.”
“You… need new organs,” Deidra realized. Galia gave her two firing finger-guns and a silent bingo.
“I hoped the WBO would pay for them. I don’t come from much. They were supposed to be my big break. But… they weren’t about to shell out a new set of pipes for a cadet. So I thought up some… alternative methods,” Galia went on. Deidra covered her mouth to keep down the flood of sympathies she wanted to spew. Galia would hate that and she knew it.
“How… long ago was that?” Deidra asked instead.
“Ten years ago. When I met Rey. Man, was he a sleaze back then. Dreamweaver was his, you know,” Galia chuckled at how strange it all sounded now, so far down the road. “‘Course, it didn’t look anything like it does now. It was a wreck, actually. He’d just totaled it in a run-in with the law over some unregistered drugs.”
“Let me guess: taxotrol?” Deidra interjected.
“Not back then. He got into that for me,” said Galia, “Anyway. I always had my eye on the Olympia. Arms dealing pays well, but not enough for all the parts I needed, so it was always a means to an end. I needed the rep for them to consider me. To get
that, I knew I needed a hard-ass crew. I started with Rey.”
“You took the Dreamweaver from him?” Deidra marveled. Galia shrugged.
“Wasn’t all too hard. He was doped up on his own product, looking for the best way to get someone else to off him, so he wouldn’t have to do it himself. Actually begged me to do it, when I marched in here and put him on his ass. I took his ship and his service, in exchange for his sobriety instead. Made me look good, too, to the competition. It was all uphill from there. Or downhill. Depends on what part of the hill you need to get to,” Galia grinned.
“Unreal… you just let everyone believe you’re some heartless outlaw,” Deidra said. She stood before she realized what she was doing. She wandered to Galia, carried by the force of will beneath all her better instincts not to.
“Myself included. I had to, to make it this far,” said Galia. She could hardly believe the audacity of this servant girl, coming to the side of her seat. Putting her hand on hers. Treating Galia like a human. But then, she had never seen just the dust-covered servant girl. She’d caught a glimpse of the warrior beneath, and Deidra had proven her right at every turn. That’s who she was now. Just like Galia had been all those years ago, when she waltzed into the banged-up Dreamweaver.
“Just until the end of the Olympia. Then you can be… who you really are,” Deidra tried to emulate her captain, to be bold.
“And who do you think that is?” Galia dared her.
“A girl. Someone who wants to see the places the stars don’t reach, caves, giants. Everything,” Deidra whispered. Galia turned her hand, to slip her fingers under Deidra’s. Both of them pulled, to meet in the middle, at their lips.