After I’m dead.
“I, I hope you’re not angry. I don’t want to upset you or anything,” Diana said, her voice trembling.
Tears began to flow from Tamara’s eyes, streaming down her cheeks. She felt sad; she felt gratitude; she felt love; all mixed together and swirling around her heart. Diana had often talked about delaying a family until after her legal career was in place. She felt family could wait. And now, she’d purposely gotten pregnant so Tamara could vicariously experience at least a tiny piece of motherhood.
She took Diana in her arms and pulled her to her lap, hugging her close to her chest.
“No, Di, I’m not angry. I’m not angry at all.”
NEW BUDAPEST
Chapter 20
Jonna and Tamara stood in the back of the open-bed truck as it made its way through the crowded streets to the stadium. People shouted up to them as the truck passed, but the two had gotten tired of waving, so they just nodded down without particular attention to who was shouting.
Bertie Jun, though, was in her element. She had moved to the front of the truck and was standing at the cab, waving and acting like the grand marshall of the parade. You would have thought she was the designated gladiator rather than a witness like the rest of them.
“Look at her. She’s loving it,” Jonna said, but without rancor.
It would be hard to be upset with Bertie. Everyone loved her, and she loved everyone. She seemed too nice to be a gladiator, but in the ring, she was an absolute terror. Tamara had never beaten her, and she deserved her #1 ranking in the class.
The top ten ranked gladiators of the class, along with ten other gladiators were on New Budapest to serve as witnesses for Marta Haps-Fieldstein’s fight. The CHSCC made sure that each gladiator witness a real fight before being assigned her own as part of the preparation process. All of them had seen recordings of each and every battle, all 356 of them, from General Lysander’s to the most recent (Latifatu Blue’s win on Cyntax 2), but seeing a fight in person took things to a whole new level. Tamara was both excited and nervous. That could be her getting ready to fight in only a few months.
Not for a planet as important as New Budapest, though. With well over a billion people on the planet, this one was too important to lose. That is why Marta, one of the four active two-braid gladiators, had been assigned to the fight. When she won, she’d be only the third ever three-fight winner.
Tamara’s first fight would be for a planet not quite as important as New Budapest. But that fight could be soon, which is why the top-ranked gladiators of her class were there, to be ready when called upon.
“Can you imagine having to evacuate this place?” Tamara asked Jonna, looking out at the huge throngs of people. “That would be a nightmare.”
“Which is why Marta got this fight, so it won’t happen.”
When a Klethos queen won a fight, that planet had to be evacuated within 11.32 days. That odd time had astrologists examining the heavens in the direction from which the Klethos came, trying to find a planet where 11.32 days corresponded to an even number of planetary days. Several potential planets had been identified, but the distances were far too great to confirm if any of them could be the Klethos home world.
To date, the largest of the 142 planets to be lost, Harkenson, had something like 120 million inhabitants, and that had come down to the wire to get everyone off the planet. For a planet like New Budapest, the shear logistics would be staggering. The UAM’s Office of Relocation had plans, of course, and they had already initiated the movement of ships, but a better plan would be just not to lose the planet in the first place. Hence, Marta Haps-Fieldstein.
The truck pulled around a corner, and the huge Ėpítők Stadion came into view. The stadium could fit over 100,000 people, and Tamara knew it would be full to overflowing.
“We who are about to die, salute you,” Jonna muttered.
Only Marta was fighting, but Tamara understood her meaning. The stadium did have a passing similarity to the Roman Coliseum, where the original gladiators entertained the masses of Rome. The numbers of people watching the spectacle bothered her, but the UAM had decided it was the best way to show support and a sense of urgency to the situation. The gladiator fighting was their champion, and they should be able to view how she performed for them. Still, Tamara wondered if there wasn’t just a hint of bloodlust for those who fought for seats.
The truck pulled up behind a line of busses that were already disgorging various noteworthies there to witness the fight. The 20 gladiators vaulted over the sides of the truck. An open-bed truck might not be glamorous, but even with a population as large as New Budapest’s, they didn’t have a normal vehicle large enough to transport them comfortably.
“This way!” a young man called out, making his way past the other dignitaries.
He reached up to take Bertie’s arm—a huge breach of protocol—and pull her as if he could physically move her. Bertie didn’t seem to take offense, which was lucky for the man as someone like Chaina might have broken his arm in two, and she motioned for the rest of them to follow. They went through a large door and straight out onto the playing field. As gladiators, they were witnesses, there to lift their sister to their shoulders in victory or take away her body in defeat.
Tamara nudged Jonna as they marched, slightly nodding her head at the enthusiastic group or 200-300 people, mostly men, of the self-styled Spectacula who were packed into one of the stadium’s lower sections. These people traveled to as many of the fights as they could, embracing the concept of gladiatorial combat, making the fights a way of life. Some wore Roman togas, which Tamara thought was strange. Others wore shirts or lofted banners emblazoned with their motto, sine missione, which essentially meant a fight to the death without reprieve. While Tamara thought the paramours were a little sad in a way, lusting as they did after gladiators who could never return their passion, the Spectacula frankly gave her the creeps.
The pomp and circumstance of the fight were surprising to Tamara. New Budapest was rightfully proud of their contribution to the war with the Klethos first on Tri-30 and then on Roggeri’s World, and there was an almost festive atmosphere to the proceedings. If Marta lost the fight, all of these people would be uprooted and evacuated from their planet, however, so Tamara had expected somewhat of a more solemn atmosphere.
The ring was set up in the middle of the stadium, a 15-meter-in-diameter-wide circle. The grass within the ring had been cut out and replaced with clean white sand. The Klethos had never indicated a specific size, nor even a designated area for a fight, but humans, being humans, liked to standardized everything, and the Klethos didn’t seem to mind. For a species that had evidently cleared a huge swath of the galaxy, eliminating, at least, two other species and driving the capys to a tiny fraction of their former population, they seemed to be pretty complacent about many aspects of their stylized combat.
Tamara took her place with the other gladiators and settled in for the wait. Her nose began to itch, an itch that grew in intensity and screamed for attention. Conscious of the fact that billions of eyes might be on her now, she resisted, standing still. For awhile, at least. Finally, she reached up quickly to swipe at her nose. No one said she had to stand completely still, after all.
A sudden roar of the crowd filled the stadium. Tamara swiveled her head to see Marta, the “Quicksilver Fox,” accompanied by her closest surviving friend, Kelly June Han, marching out of the tunnel and into the stadium. The crowd was going wild.
Part of her understood the frenzy. She’d never actually met Marta before, only seeing her a few times around the campus, and Marta was a galaxy-wide hero. Her silver, magenta, and turquoise striped hair were her trademark, something emulated by little girls throughout human space. Another part of her, however, felt uncomfortable about the festive atmosphere. Marta was going to fight to the death, and the entire planet’s future hinged on her ability to win. Tamara thought this was a more serious occasion than the Galaxy Cup finals which it
was resembling from the spectator aspect. She realized that gladiatorial games had always been something for the masses, but this wasn’t a game. This was war.
Marta moved gracefully from the tunnel to the middle of the playing field, Kelly June at her side. She didn’t acknowledge the other gladiators, but rather stepped up to the edge of the ring before sinking into a seiza, or kneeling posture, hand on her thighs, eyes focused straight ahead. With her fighting skins, branded to match her hair, the definition of her muscles were evident. She looked the warrior, and Tamara was not surprised that she had two braids.
They stayed in this position, Marta kneeling, Kelly June at her shoulder, and the rest of the gladiators standing, for over 20 minutes, the crowd growing restless. People started shouting out, some over-enthusiastic spectators issuing challenges of their own. Those challenges stopped short when at last, the d’relle entered the stadium. Except for the Spectacula and some of the UAM staff, very few of the spectators in the stadium had probably seen a d’relle in real life, Tamara included. Tamara, at least, had fought simulacrum after simulacrum, but still, the Klethos queen was impressive, to say the least. She moved with a grace that did nothing to hide the power that her limbs possessed. The muscles on her thighs bunched and relaxed with each step, muscles that Tamara knew could unleash in a deadly kick that could end the fight immediately. Tamara watched her, trying to remember all the xenophysiology classes she’d had back on Malibu.
And this queen strolled into the stadium alone, with no entourage. One Klethos queen facing over 100,000 humans. At a signal, the people could rush the field and tear the queen apart. It had almost happened before, on Milan-Santiago after the human gladiator had been defeated, but luckily, the UAM Guard had managed to keep the d’relle safe. No one knew what would happen should a victorious d’relle be killed, and no one wanted to find out.
There had only been a thousand or so spectators on Milan-Santiago. There were over 100,000 people here on New Budapest. If they charged, then the 100 or so UAM Guard detachment and the 500 or more soldiers at the stadium probably couldn’t stop them, which is why some governments advocated that spectators not be allowed on the scene at all. But the UAM did not have the authority to ban the people, so it was up to the host planet, the one whose ass was on the line.
Despite the obvious threat, the d’relle showed no signs of nervousness. Slightly taller, but with slightly less mass than Marta, she seemed at ease as if just out for a walk in the park. Twenty-three Klethos had landed on New Budapest in their personal craft (craft which human scientist still hadn’t been able to reverse-engineer), yet this warrior had entered the stadium alone. Sometimes they faced the humans without an entourage, sometimes they did. On Diamode 3, over 500 of them had shown up. Xenobiologists could not agree upon the reason for the differences. Tamara felt it might just be up to the personal preference of the d’relle.
The gladiator eye in Tamara checked out her armor and sword as she entered. Unlike the humans who entered the ring in their fighting skins, the d’relle fought naked, or nearly so. They had their own style of armor, plates on pieces of a hard substance that covered vulnerable spots such as shoulders, thighs, and chest. The armor didn’t look like much, and it functioned differently from the gladiator’s armor, but it could turn a human blade. Nothing in this d’relle’s armory looked out of the ordinary. Her weapon was the typical scimitar-looking blade that most d’relles carried. It looked like simple steel, but it was actually a ceramic-type material. It was an excellent slashing weapon with enough heft to it to cause some serious damage. But a gladiator could not ignore the point, which could be used for stabbing. Tamara had fought with mock-ups of the sword, as well as with the mace-like weapon some d’relle used, and while it was close in function to her own mameluke, Tamara much preferred her own weapon to it. That was probably not surprising as the mameluke was a human weapon—and hers had been fitted to her—while the d’relle scimitar was designed for the Klethos physiology.
Jonna’s sylvian, which was a type of rapier, never-the-less had a sharply forward curved quillon that was designed to catch the d’relle weapon as it slid down the length of the sylvian’s blade. It was a pretty good defensive measure, as Tamara had discovered when she’d tried using a sylvian, but that kept the weapon locked and unable to be thrust home.
The d’relle strode to the middle of the ring, eyes locked on Marta for a few long moments. When she lifted her head back and screeched, her neck feathers suddenly flaring out, Tamara flinched despite expecting it. Then came the stomp, where she lifted one leg high in the air, then brought it forward, slamming it into the ground, clawed toes pointing forward as she leaned over the leg, looking back at Marta.
Marta didn’t move, and the d’relle she jumped up in the air, at least two meters high, and kicked out with one leg before spinning around in a circle. While the initial challenge was basically unchanged from any previous d’relle’s, the bodies of the hakas themselves were more personalized. This d’relle seemed to favor the spins more than anything else. Tamara, standing a good 20 meters back, could hear the whistle of the blade as it sliced through the air. Whatever the style a particular d’relle danced, and some looked like nothing more than an epileptic fit, the intent was obviously to show off skill and power.
The haka went on for almost five minutes before with a final fury of spins, the d’relle slammed to a stop, leaning forward. Marta was still kneeling, but the d’relle had bent over, so her face was less than a meter from Marta’s.
Marta waited less than ten seconds before responding. From analysis of combat footage, the d’relle had about a 30-second window in which a challenge could be accepted or refused. No one knew if this was a hard and fast rule among them or not, but the gladiators were taught never to go beyond 15 seconds. It could be catastrophic if a dramatic pause led a d’relle to believe that the challenge was being turned down.
Marta smoothly rose to her feet. She held one hand behind her, eyes locked on her opponent. Kelly June opened the case she was holding, removing Mercury, Marta’s shortsword. The crowd gasped in unison, many then breaking out into applause. Not many gladiators named their swords, but with two wins, no one thought her naming hers was bravado. Marta had walked the walk, so if she wanted to name it, so be it.
Kelly June slapped the hilt of the sword in Marta’s hand, and Marta immediately jumped into her haka. “Jumped” was right. Marta’s haka was mostly a cross between kendo moves, full of grace, interspaced with thrusting actions more in line with the design of her weapon. While some gladiators spent days and days mastering her haka, Marta’s was quick, powerful, and to the point. Along with many other gladiators, she thought wasting energy in an elaborate haka was stupid when her life was on the line. With two kills within the ring, Tamara thought her opinions on hakas had to carry some weight. Tamara had only played a bit with hers, but she still had time to decide on which way she would go on that.
Marta circled the motionless d’relle several times, coming close to slicing or stabbing her more than once. It didn’t seem to faze the d’relle, though, who never even flinched. At about a minute, which the xenobiologists had somehow determined was the minimum duration of one to be accepted (how they determined that was unknown, and the gladiators thought was utter BS, just something they said to justify their jobs and lack of concrete insights), Marta moved well back from the d’relle and came to a stop facing her. Marta let out a scream, accepting the challenge.
During past combats, d’relle attacked immediately upon the conclusion of the human gladiator’s haka 14 times, coming out victorious eight of those times. Gladiators now ended their haka as far as possible from the d’relle in order to have at least a moment of transition between haka and combat.
In this fight, the d’relle seemed amenable to the slight delay. She turned, then slowly brought up her sword, pointing it at Marta with her heavily muscled lower arm. As with most d’relle, this one was left-handed. Marta was right-handed, so the two would be mir
roring each other.
Tamara was behind the d’relle, so her view consisted of her back and the red, gold, and tan crest. The crest looked like feathers, but they were chock full of nerves. Once again, the xenobiologists differed on their purpose, but when cut, they threw off a d’relle’s balance. After Celeste had started the trend of long, dyed hair, the d’relle spent several fights attempting to cut the gladiators’ hair, but when that proved to have no effect on them, the d’relle ceased to target it.
Tamara felt the excitement build up inside of her. As a new gladiator, she felt honored to be there for Marta’s third win, even if she knew it was merely a coincidence of scheduling. As one of the first ten in her class, her first fight as a witness had been up to the mercy of which fight was next. Still, she appreciated being able to watch a master at work. She leaned forward to watch. Unlike in the Hollybolly flicks, swordfights tended to last less than an average of 30 seconds, and much of that tended to be feints and posturing. Fights going past a minute were rare. Tamara didn’t want to miss a single move.
It was Marta who moved first, lunging forward to the d’relle’s left side, outside her guard. Almost quicker than the eye could catch, she flicked her wrist to bring her shortsword’s tip inside the d’relle’s weapon, ready to drive it home to her opponent’s exposed neck. A thrill swept through Tamara as she realized Marta’s strategy. A longer sword could never make that change in direction in order to get under her opponent’s guard, but a shortsword could.
And just like that, it was over.
Tamara started to jump forward, a cheer in her throat, but something was off. The d’relle was not falling. It was turning around and lifting a defiant head to the sky. A thunderous screech filled the stadium as just beyond her. Marta, the Quicksilver Fox, fell to her knees, and with a look of incomprehension, fell face first to the sand, blood pouring from her right side.
Gladiator (Women of the United Federation Marines Book 1) Page 11