Orb Station Zero (Galactic Arena Series Book 1)

by Dan Davis

  Oskar threw up his hands. “Fine, of course, I know. I know.”

  Captain Cassidy threw Ram a quick look from across the room. Ram’s heart skipped a beat.

  Was the Captain going to denounce him?

  “However,” Cassidy said. “I do believe my expertise can be of assistance to us all in making a decision here today. And I honestly can’t believe none of you has said it so far. I’m certain we must all be thinking it. We all know that there was one survivor of the massacre in the barracks room. A man of utterly extraordinary physical ability. Demonstrably the strongest man the world has ever know. A man with thousands of hours of simulated combat in over a dozen highly competitive arenas. Just a few days ago he received multiple bullet wounds, including two rounds to the skull. And yet I hear that he has already made a full physical recovery. He was built for this, in every way.” Captain Cassidy held out his hand, indicating the back of the room. “Thank you for joining us, Rama Seti.”

  Every head in the room turned to point his way in a suddenly rustling and chair scraping mass. Dozens of faces. Not one of them seemed to be impressed. Many of them turned back to the front.

  Bediako's looked like he wanted to murder Cassidy and Ram both.

  “Hi,” Ram said. “How are you all doing?”

  Someone near the front raised their hand.

  “But he's not a real subject,” a woman said. “He's only here for cannon fodder. I’m sorry but it’s just the truth, isn’t it?”

  Another crew member he had never seen replied. “That’s right, simulated experience has no bearing on real world experience.”

  Someone unseen called out. “He's only even been awake a few days, really.”

  People started shouting, speaking over each other.

  “He just got shot to pieces and Fo has rebuilt him from scans.”

  “There’s a certain mindset to champions that he just does not have.”

  “If you’re going to consider him you might as well put one of the Artificial Persons in the arena, right?”

  Ram thought it was mainly the drivers calling out. They had all lost their subjects and they were hurting, angry. Despairing. A few people then objected to the general consensus. Not many.

  It was pissing him off.

  “I’m sorry,” Oskar the driver shouted. “I really am but he honestly does not have the mental fortitude. I’ve read his progress reports. He’s a loser. He quits when things get tough, it’s a deeply rooted pattern of behavior that cannot be excised, even with digital brain surgery. To put it bluntly, he will never have what it takes. This is a waste of our time.”

  Ram straightened up and strode down the center of the room toward the front. He wasn't entirely sure why he was going or what he would do when he got to there but he was angry at being dismissed out of hand by those people. Who were they to question him, to doubt him? What did they know about him, really? About what he knew he was capable of, deep down in his soul.

  He towered over everyone. He overtopped even Bediako. The normal sized people were like children to him.

  Sitting beneath him, the driver named Oskar seemed to shrink further into his seat, glancing up at Ram as he walked past. He stared down at Oskar with loathing. Sure, him and all the drivers were all ludicrously intelligent, accomplished and competent but, for fuck’s sake, so was he. There was no reason to be intimidated by any one of them and not even by the group of them all together. A deep anger welled inside him. Anger at Alina and Mael.

  And at himself.

  Allowing that anger to come to the surface meant he could face them down with little room left for self-doubt.

  Zhukov nodded up at Ram when he drew near and Ram returned the nod. The sea of faces looking back at him when he turned to the audience was a little overwhelming for a moment but then that familiar feeling of unreality flooded in. He'd addressed crowds bigger than this before. Those times he had been in-game and he'd been in his avatar speaking to hundreds of other avatars, not real people but it amounted to the same thing, really. A few years back when he started building his co-op he'd even gone on a three-day business course called Delivering Powerful IRL and Avar Presentations. Little in that course had been of long term use but there was one tip that had always stuck with him.

  Open with a joke.

  “I'm hurt,” Ram said. He watched the faces frown back at him. “I’m hurt real bad. I'm hurt that you guys didn't think of me right away.”

  It was a lame gag but a few people chuckled. Captain Cassidy even grunted.

  “I shouldn't joke in these circumstances,” Ram continued. “Obviously. Like someone just said, I haven't been here for long. Well, not conscious and attached to a body, anyway. But in the last seventy days or so since I have been a member of this crew, a willing participant in this mission, I have made friends here. Comrades, if you like. It has not been long in days and hours, perhaps but the ludus is an intense place and you live it, fully, day and night. I guess what I’m saying is that I really did count a handful of the other subjects as my friends. And they were murdered.”

  He looked out at them. They looked confused, saddened. It wasn't what Ram wanted to say at all.

  “But look,” he said. “I have experience. Lots simulated, yes. Some real world. And I have this body. This old model body, sure but it’s one with modern features, recently installed. So, you know, as much as I hate to step up here and say this, logically, I'm really the best chance we have of winning in the Orb Arena.”

  “You?” Bediako shouted from across the room. He laughed. It was a sound like a chainsaw ripping through a bundle of rusty barbed wire. “You're a patsy, son. You're a lamb to the slaughter that fluked getting away from the slaughterhouse. Go sit down before you hurt yourself.”

  Ram shook his head. “And I say that putting you forward would be the worst mistake humanity could make. Let’s face it, you went in there once before and you lost. And now you’re old as fuck, you’re riddled with radiation and your mind is full of holes. I’m sorry for you but you're a fragile old has-been and you wouldn’t have a hope.”

  Silence. Bediako’s eyes popped out of his head and veins at the man’s temples and forehead shone.

  Bediako strode forward, throwing chairs and people out of his way.

  Ram prepared to fight, feeling the epinephrine surging through him. He hoped Milena would dose him good.

  Chairs scraped on the floor as people, especially in the front row jumped to their feet and scrambled aside, out of Bediako’s way. He strutted with his head down, like a bullock making a run at a gate.

  “Stop,” Zhukov roared. The volume was such that it made Ram's ears' ring. He stepped into the Chief Instructor’s way with his arms spread wide. “You cannot fight in here, this is the Mess Hall.”

  “Fine,” Bediako said, coming to a stop, his face contorting with the effort to control himself. He towered over the new Director. “Not here. I will kill him in the ludus.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE – BEDIAKO

  Rama stared across the sparring room at Bediako. The chief instructor was busy slapping himself in the face and growling to psych himself up.

  They had the huge room to themselves. All support staff had been ordered into the Ludus Mess or the PT Room, ready and waiting to pick up the pieces should anything go badly wrong. Whoever won the fight, both men were valuable resources, so Zhukov said beforehand.

  “It has been my goal, throughout my careers, to always have choose best individual for the job,” Zhukov said from ship’s speakers, broadcasting throughout the Victory. “As much as it pains me to risk either man, we must determine who will provide humanity’s best chance. Will it be technique and experience winning over strength and relative youth? We will know shortly who will be Mission Four’s Subject Alpha. And may the best man win.”

  Zhukov had broadcast his message from the safety of his office. The camera feed from the sparring room was shared live with every screen on the ship.

  “What did he mean by
relative youth?” Ram muttered to Milena. He looked across the width of that tubular room to where Bediako jumped on the spot, slapping his chest now. The old man’s physique really was remarkable, his muscles were smaller that Ram’s but they appeared to be incredibly dense and the man moved like a ninja.

  “This is it, now, Rama,” Milena said from inside Ram's inner ear. “This is the fight that will decide all life as we know it.”

  “Don't say that,” Ram said, flexing and stretching to warm his muscles. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  She laughed. “Just attempting to lighten the mood.”

  “Do you really think I can beat him?”

  “I know you will beat him. You're stronger, younger, faster. He probably knows every trick there is to know but that didn't help him when he fought the Wheelhunter, did it. No doubt he will strike you, hard. No doubt he will get you in arm locks and leg locks and he will attempt to choke you. Your escape techniques are basic, yes but you have the strength to remove his holds. You have trained constantly, every day, all day, for months whereas he has been doing weights in his spare time. All you need to do is catch him, hold him still and pummel him. Or perhaps break his limbs until he cannot move any longer.”

  “Simple, really.”

  Across the room, Bediako completed his preparations and strode out to the middle of the huge space, his shoulders relaxed, like he was promenading around Nehru Park.

  “If you are really afraid, you do not have to do this,” Milena said. “You know that. A few days ago you were fighting only to stay alive as long as you could, your goal was simply to live. If you let Bediako fight the Wheeler, then you won’t have to fight the alien. And you will live, certainly, maybe even make it back to Earth one day. So why don’t you just give up right now?”

  Ram laughed, watching the way Bediako moved lightly on his toes. He knew Milena was playing devil’s advocate, was trying to remind him why he had stepped up.

  “How long would I even live for if he loses against the Wheeler? Years, probably but we don't know, years when humanity is under a sustained alien attack? If I am the best fighter, then it has to be me in the Orb arena.”

  “You’re going to crush him,” Milena said. “Look at him, dancing about like an idiot.”

  Ram took a deep breath, watching Bediako’s silky movement. The instructor smiled when he saw Ram staring at him.

  “He’s one of the most elite fighters in human history,” Ram said, rotating his hands to loosen his wrists.

  “So are you, you moron. Give it your all. You will win this fight. His brain is seventy years old, all patched up with a downloaded mind. He’s on his second body. You going to smash his skull in.”

  “Fine, Lena, take it easy,” Ram said to her. “I hear what you’re saying. I’m overpowered and he’s been nerfed all to shit.”

  The massive training room seemed even bigger than usual, with no one in it but for Ram and Bediako. Almost everyone on the ship would be watching live, through the multiple cameras arrayed in the walls and ceiling all around the room.

  “You’re thinking of backing out, fat boy,” Bediako said from the center of the room, holding his arms out like he owned the place. “And you should. Do yourself a favor. Do the mission a favor. You could still have uses, you can be my training partner. But you’re no good if you're too broken to function.”

  Trying to intimidate me, Ram thought.

  “He's just trying to intimidate you,” Milena said. “He’s asserting dominance, reminding you that he’s the instructor. Demonstrating that this is his territory.”

  “Obviously,” Ram muttered. “Stop talking unless it’s practical advice.”

  “Come on up here, coward,” Bediako shouted, laughing. Ram ignored him, rolling his head around to warm up his vast neck muscles.

  “Roger that. First, try to keep away from him for as long as possible. Let him tire his old ass out.”

  Ram took a deep breath and walked out onto the mats, approaching the center of the room where his opponent waited.

  Despite his advanced years, Bediako was a monster of a man. Almost as tall as Ram, big boned and with long, dense muscles like a sprinter in the Cyborg Olympics. His legs were long, powerful. He looked like he’d been sculpted from the finest Italian black marble.

  “I’m not going to outrun him, Milena,” Ram mumbled, speaking as low as he could without being overheard.

  Bediako chuckled from the center of the room. “Taking combat advice from a psychologist? You are ignorant. You are naïve. You have no idea what those people have done to you when you have been unconscious, how much they have reconstructed your mind. Who even are you, now? You haven’t learned a thing since these last two months, not from me nor from anyone, and you certainly have learned nothing from your driver.”

  Ram was itching to ask what the hell he was talking about but he knew that’s what Bediako wanted, to unsettle him.

  “I’ve learned enough.”

  The instructor laughed, looking around the room as if to invite the watching crowd to share in his laughter. “You're about to get a real lesson,” Bediako said.

  Ram wished he could think of a brilliant response, some brutal trash talk that would cut him to the bone.

  “Shut the fuck up, grandpa,” Ram said. “Let’s do this.”

  Bediako grinned and hunched over, his arms out and up, palms down like a praying mantis. Ram turned sideways, leading with his right leg, bent his knees, put his weight on his toes, dropped his hips down to lower his center of gravity and held his hands at the ready. He knew Bediako was a champion grappler who liked to take his opponents to the ground and pound them into submission so Ram had to be ready for that. He wanted to keep Bediako away with punches and kicks, to use his reach advantage to strike Bediako.

  He’s expecting me to be defensive, Ram thought and aimed a low, fast kick at Bediako's knee. Bediako shifted a fraction and Ram hit nothing but air.

  Bediako charged in, shooting for Ram's knees to take him down. Ram reached down to grab his opponent's back but a fist came out of nowhere and cracked him on the nose. The surprise of it distracted Ram for a moment and then Bediako had his arms entangled in Ram's knees. Ram punched down onto Bediako's back, a powerful blow into his kidney. He felt the man grunt as they both went down in a heap. The fall was hard but Ram was covered in muscle and it didn’t hurt. Yet Ram felt a rising panic at the fact that he'd been taken to the ground. Right where Bediako wanted him. That was where Bediako's experience would win out.

  It was all going wrong.

  On his back, Ram fought to keep the older man at bay by grasping his wrists but Bediako twisted his arms out of Ram's grasp and grabbed one of Ram's elbows. Bediako pushed himself forward, pinning Ram's legs with his own, wriggling forward like a snake and mounting him, pinning Ram's hips to the floor. Bediako was going for an arm lock.

  Or an arm break.

  Ram had practiced enough grappling to know the proper techniques for countering all the holds and arm and leg locks and the chokes but he had not performed them enough times to do them without thinking. He had not had enough time for muscle memory to be established, so when his heart was racing and his mind whirring, he couldn’t quite bring the techniques to mind, couldn’t quite get his body to obey. He fumbled and struggled but couldn’t free himself. All he could do was hold on for as long as possible and hope for a mistake, an opportunity. Both of them were panting with exertion, both slick with sweat and roaring with heat.

  The force on his arm was incredible. Bediako pulled with the inexorable force of a machine.

  “You're stronger than him, Ram,” Milena's voice came through. She sounded perfectly calm. But then, she would, Ram thought. She was not the one about to get her arm broken. “I'm increasing your testosterone and cortisol uptake now. They're already naturally elevated but you can handle more. You must resist, pull his arm back. You are the strongest man who ever lived. Act like it!”

  Ram wanted to shout
at her to shut the fuck up but he needed every breath of air he could to get the oxygen he needed to fight. His heart was hammering in his chest, pounding so hard he could hear it throbbing in his ears.

  Bediako's black face shone with sweat, his eyes popping as he strained against Ram's arm.

  I'm the strongest man who ever lived, Ram thought. I can beat this old fuck. I have to.

  Ram's arm flexed as he brought it in toward himself. Just a little.

  Bediako presumably saw that his method would fail and so he changed it. Before Ram could react, Bediako, keeping firm pressure on Ram's arm, rolled off his hips, away from his body and threw both his legs across Ram's upper body.

  Armbar.

  Ram knew the technique. It was a classic. One that pitted the strength of a whole body against a single limb. Bediako was using his legs, buttocks and torso as well as both arms to attempt to overextend Ram's arm and break it. It would snap at the elbow unless Ram gave up or else could somehow free himself.

  Bediako's massive, muscular leg was across Ram's throat and lower jaw.

  The tendons on his arm were stretching. He could feel them. The bone at the elbow joint would be compressing the tissue in between, using the compressed tissue as a fulcrum to pivot his upper and lower arm in the wrong direction. Pain shot up to his shoulder and down to his fingers. Bediako arched his back and heaved, his tendons and veins popping out all over his skin. Someone was growling through their teeth.

  Ram knew enough to know it was a difficult position to free himself from. But he had to. There were ways of doing it, he wracked his brain for the videos he had watched, the techniques he'd practiced with Te and Sifa.

  Sifa. A surge of anger coursed through him at the memory of her body in the barracks, laying in a pool of blood. Killed through the culture of the ludus and the practice of favoring a single subject over the others. A culture encouraged and enforced by his opponent.