The fight site itself might be limited to the bigwigs, but a huge crowd surrounded the hotel, and when the two gladiators emerged to get into the van, they erupted in cheers. The landing site was a good 20 kilometers from the hotel, but it took the van driver (not the autopilot that drove most vans) almost 40 minutes to slowly drive through the pressing crowds that lined the way. It wasn’t until they reached a police cordon at the base of Landing Hill that he could speed up to a more normal rate of travel.
At the top of the hill, the driver stopped the van, and the two gladiators got out. “VIP” was obviously a loosely-held term. There had to be over 2,000 spectators crowded at around the crest of the hill. Tamara spotted Colonel Covington and the UAM liaison, but that was about it. There were too many people in too little space.
A huge statue of Major Bovenlander dominated the area. He was gazing out over the city of Leeuwarden below. The ring was at his feet. To the major’s left, Tamara’s 20 witnessed stood. To the major’s right, and empty path split the VIPs, a route for the d’relle to arrive.
Tamara nodded once to the witnesses. All seven other Marine gladiators were there, as was Elei. She’d left the rest of the witness list up to the Chicsis staff.
As on Halcon, Tamara stepped out onto the ring to feel the consistency of the sand. She was impressed: it was as good if not better than their rings back on Malibu. The better the ring, the more the results depended on skill. A poor ring could throw a wrench in things, and more than a few gladiators had lost their lives to poor footing.
Tamara then settled in to wait.
Carruthers had told her that only two Klethos had arrived on the surface. As normal, they came in their little one-person (one-Klethos?) ships and landed a good deal away from the combat ring. How they selected a spot at which to land was a mystery. On Saint Baltimore, over 100 of them had landed over 400 klicks away from the site, yet they’d walked up on time for the fight. How they even got to the site itself was only theorized. Surveillance on them was famously erratic and even contrary from one site to another.
A murmur from the crowd let Tamar know that the Klethos was in view. She didn’t move, but kept her eyes locked straight ahead.
I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. . .
From the corner of her eyes, she saw her opponent walk up to the ring almost nonchalantly. She stood for a moment and looked at the gathered observers, then with the familiar screech, stomped her foot forward in the initial challenge. Without hesitation, she launched into her haka.
I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. . .
This d’relle, like her last opponent, seemed to be more about grace than pure strength, albeit to maybe a lesser degree. She twirled and spun, but that was punctuated by more than a few foot stomps. She even slammed her sword into the sand, burying the tip at least 20 centimeters deep, which meant she thrust it into the rocky soil under the sand.
Swordmaster Abad would have her ass for that, Tamara thought, interrupting her mantra.
Nothing else the d’relle did was noteworthy to Tamara. She didn’t display hints as to her fighting style, nor did she show any weaknesses.
I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. I’m a lean, green, fighting machine. . .
It seemed like a longer-than-normal haka, but with a last spin, she finished with the final challenge pose.
Without taking her eyes off the d’relle, Tamara held her hand in back of her, a surgeon waiting for her scalpel. Ronna slapped the hilt of her mameluke into her hand. There was a murmur from the gathered observers, and for once, Tamara cracked a smile. She knew everyone had expected another Maori haka, but she didn’t always do what was expected. After Marta had been killed, she’d wondered if the Klethos kept track of individual gladiators. The accepted truth was that they didn’t, but she thought it odd that only three gladiators had ever won three times in the ring. In ancient Rome, there were great gladiators with 50 wins. She thought the Klethos might observe fights and the train up d’relles to face specific gladiators when they fought again. If the Klethos did follow them or not, it didn’t hurt to shake things up. If the observers didn’t like that, so what. She was there to defend them, not entertain them.
She wasn’t very well prepared, though, unlike when she danced her last haka. She hadn’t expected to be called again so soon, so she hadn’t quite worked out all the steps. Luckily, the Turkish Sword Dance was somewhat repetitious. The mameluke was derived from sabers used by the Maluks in Egypt, and those, in turn, were derived from the Turkish kilij, so the Turkish Sword Dance seemed appropriate.
Keeping her eyes locked on the d’relle, Tamara brought her sword to the vertical, with her right arm cocked 90 degrees at the elbow. She reached over with her left arm and took ahold of the blade half-way up it and then began to march backwards, circling the d’relle.
The Klethos queen never moved, even when Tamara was behind it, but Tamara thought there was the tiniest relaxing of the d’relle’s shoulders as Tamara completed the circuit. Stopping, she lunged forward with her right side leading, right arm extended, the point of her mameluke touching the sand centimeters from the d’relle’s feet.
Hah! She flinched! Tamara noted, strangely exulting over the fact.
A flinch didn’t signify much in the way of combat, but she felt it was almost a moral victory. Tamara sprang back erect, then lunged forward again, a meter or so to her right. She repeated this: lunge, spring back, lunge, spring back until she completed another circuit.
She looks nervous, Tamara thought as the d’relle eyed her.
Tamara didn’t actually know how a Klethos exhibited nervousness, but something in the d’relle’s carriage gave her that impression. It was like she was wondering just what Tamara would do next.
The final circuit was not really taken from the ancient holos of Turkish sword dances Tamara had been able to find. In those, the sword dancers slapped their swords on small, round shields. Tamara didn’t have a shield, of course, so she substituted her left forearm for one. She performed a sort of hop-skip, her right knee coming high, slapping the sword on her forearm at the height of each hop. She covered more ground with each hop, so it only took a few moments to make the circuit around the ring. She came back to her position in front of the d’relle, then lunged forward in the classic challenge acceptance.
She was still too close to the d’relle when she finished, and her opponent didn’t hesitate but immediately launched into a furious attack. As Tamara had watched what she considered to be a growing nervousness in the d’relle, she had anticipated that the d’relle might do that. It didn’t look like Tamara was in any position to defend herself, extended and low to the ground, and the d’relle brought down a crushing blow to cleave Tamara’s head—which Tamara deflected with her quillon just enough to send the Klethos blade a few centimeters to the side. The d’relle was left handed, as normal, and Tamara was right handed. This meant Tamara’s mameluke was now inside the d’relle’s guard. She pronated her wrist to cant her blade tip a few degrees to the left and the d’relle impaled herself with the force of her lunge, driving her body all the way to the quillons. Blue blood drenched Tamara’s hand as the d’relle slumped over.
Tamara stood up as the d’relle’s sword dropped from her hand. There was life in her opponent’s eyes, life that was fading but still there. With a wrench, Tamara pulled her sword from the d’relle, who fell to her knees. Tamara stood still for a moment, staring at her opponent as she shuddered and gasped for air. D’relles were tough, very tough, and they’d been known to injure and even defeat gladiators while grievously wounded, as Elei could attest. This one didn’t even have her sword in her hand, however.
Tamara didn’t care.
With an executioners’ blow, she took the d’relle’s head off at the shoulders. The body fell to the side while the head flew up a meter, feathered crest splayed as the head spun, spraying blood in graceful curve, before falling down
to the clean sand, sand that was immediately stained blue.
Tamara spun about and marched out of the ring without a victory shout. The entire fight, from the moment she finished her challenge to when the d’relle’s severed head hit the deck, had been less than ten seconds. She’d done her job, nothing more, nothing less. She didn’t need to scream to the heavens to advertise that.
MALIBU
Chapter 33
“Nice passata-sotto,” Beth said as the van dropped Tamara and Jonna at the Gustavson Village rec center. “You’re in the running for the top move of the year.”
A passata-sotto was when a swordsman went low, putting his or her non-sword hand on the ground and raising the sword hand to come up under the opponent’s guard. Tamara knew that her move on Frieson could have looked like that—and maybe her countless hours of training had kicked in. But she’d been in that position because of the traditional final lunge of the challenge, not because she’d wanted it that way. She just had thought that the d’relle might launch and immediate attack, and she’d reacted to that.
The reaction to the move had been immediate and frenetic. The cybernet had lit up with messages, some 8 billion within the first fifteen minutes, the UAM debriefer had told her. Challenges were becoming more numerous, and as could be expected, the public interest had flagged, something that the UAM Single Combat Directorate seemingly couldn’t accept. Tamara was not sure why. What mattered was the win, not whether the ratings were high, at least in her mind. But the immediate and profound reaction from the public to her fight was candy to babies to the UAM, and they were beside themselves with joy, giddy, even. Tamara’s flight back had to be delayed as more interviews were scheduled. Beth and the rest of the gladiators had been back for a full day before Tamara and Jonna had been able to return.
There would be more obligations for her tomorrow, but once again, the braiding ceremony had become sacrosanct to the gladiators, and the rest of human space could just tune out for an evening as far as they were concerned.
Beth opened the front door, and the gathered gladiators broke out into applause. Tamara was about the join the fifteen total and eight active two-braid gladiators. While Jonna and her friends were beaming, it wasn’t that huge of a deal to Tamara, and she wasn’t quite sure why. Sure, she was glad she had won, and she knew she was joining some elite company, but the pride she’d felt after her first win was surprisingly dampened. To her mind, she’d done her job, nothing more.
Still, she let herself get caught up in the general mood as she was led up to Fleetwood. He’d shrunken further into himself over the last eight months, if that was even possible, but his gaze was still clear and strong as she marched up to him.
“Senior Gladiator,” she announced, “I have returned victorious!”
“Again!” several voices called out as cheers and foot-stomping reverberated through the center.
“So I see. Again,” he said, his mouth turning up into a smile. “Then I must turn you over to the ministrations of our sister, Shareetha.”
That saddened Tamara just a bit. Naomi, who had braided her first braid, was no longer cognizant. She had passed the torch to Shareetha Wilson, a frail gladiator who probably wouldn’t be around long enough for many more braiding ceremonies.”
Her hands were firm, though, as she took another lock of Tamara’s hair from just behind her first braid and wove the strands of the lock into another heavy braid. Within moments, two of them hung down her cheeks.
As soon as Shareetha was finished, as many of the gladiators who could fit gathered around her to offer her congratulations.
“Hey, what happened to the haka?” Elei asked. “Did you forget my people?”
“You’re Samoan, not Maori,” Tamara said with a laugh. “Besides, I’ve got to keep things mixed up.”
“Was that haka Turkish?” Flower Mataraci asked.”
“Sort of,” Tamar admitted.
“I knew it!” Flower said. “I told you so,” she said to someone just out of Tamara’s view.
As the gladiators, her sisters, crowded around, Tamara realized that this was what was important. The saving of planets was the key thing, of course. But more than the interviews, more than the attention of the various bigwigs who wanted her attention, it was her sisters here who mattered. Tamara was a Marine and intensely proud of that. And she missed the Corps. But her sister-gladiators were also her family. With them crowding around her, the blasé feeling that had enveloped her since the win on Frieson disappeared.
This is who she was, and she was damned proud of it.
Chapter 34
“OK, let’s make the grand entrance,” Tamara told Jonna as the two walked up to the Sichko Village rec center.
“You look good, there, Iron Shot,” Jonna said.
Tamara did look good, and she knew it. The fact that anyone looked good in Marine dress blues was beside the point. She looked good, and that was what mattered.
“Am I OK?” Jonna asked for the tenth time.
Jonna’s tall, comparatively lanky frame, pale skin, and almost white hair made her one of the most attractive gladiators from what most people considered beautiful. She’d had numerous requests for meetings from the paramours, something that didn’t usually happen until after a gladiator was braided. And now, in a long, tightly fitted deep blue dress, she looked great, “gladiator standards” or not.
“Yes, yes, let’s go in. You got your certificate?”
“Right here,” she said, pointing at the small clasp she carried in her left hand. Marines in uniform were not allowed to carry purses of any kind, but then again, Jonna was not in uniform.
The door opened as they approached it. Tiktik, one of the maintenance staff, stood tall and proud in a tuxedo, one hand on the door and the other pointing the way.
“Wow! You look great, Tiktik!” Tamara said.
“Thank you, ma’am. And may I say the same for you? And for Miss Sirén, too, of course.”
“You may say anything you like, dear sir, if you keep up the sweet talk like that,” Jonna said with a curtsy.
Other than with the direct staff of trainers, there wasn’t too much in the way of interaction between the gladiators and the norms who ran and took care of the campus. However, there were a few who’d become almost pets of the gladiators. Tiktik was one of them. A short man, even by normal standards, with a huge blotch of white skin along his face and neck, his personality lent itself for him to be a sounding board for them. A deeply religious man, he could have had the blotch that marred his ebony skin fixed easily enough, but he said that if God made him that way, then who was he to argue? Dealing with about 500 genmodded women, that could have been taken poorly, but his attitude and demeanor precluded that. He was one of perhaps a dozen support staff who not only had access to the gladiators, but was their friend. Along with Auntie Ruth and maybe Deseree Lee Caspin, the three were probably the favorite staff members for most of the gladiators.
As if on command, Auntie Ruth walked over to greet them.
“Tamara, welcome. And Johanna? You’re attending, too?” she asked, sounding surprised.
“Yes, I am,” Jonna said brightly.
“Oh, OK,” she said with a shrug. “If you just go inside, Colonel Covington is waiting.”
The two gladiators turned the corner into the main hall where the colonel and three Marines jumped up from the small table.
“Happy birthday, Chief Warrant Officer Veal,” the colonel said, a huge smile on his face.
“Happy birthday to you, too, sir. And to you, Sergeant. . .”
“Sergeant Nelson, ma’am. And these are Corporal Singh, Lance Corporal Teller, and Lance Corporal Look-Wanson. We’re your color guard,” he added needlessly.
“Happy birthday to all of you. And thank you for coming. I’m afraid this isn’t quite what they had planned on Tarawa, but we really appreciate it.”
“We’re from Gobi, Ma’am, not Tarawa. First Recon,” the sergeant said with more than a little p
ride.
“Well, thank you, sergeant. We really appreciate it.”
“Not as much as we appreciate you, begging the ma’am’s pardon,” Lance Corporal Teller interrupted.
Tamara felt a warm wash of gratitude sweep over her. Sometimes, she thought being cooped up on the campus isolated them from humanity. Out in Orroville, the townspeople were used to them, grateful for their boost to the economy, and of course the paramours trolled the streets for their own reasons. When fighting, they were isolated as well, preparing for the fight and being hustled back after the required holo-ops and interviews. But right here, these Marines, who gave up the birthday balls and celebrations back with their friends and family just to be a color guard for six Marine gladiators, that meant something.
For a moment, she actually thought she was going to cry, so she got out another thanks and pushed open the door into the main hall. The other seven Marines were already there, and the smiles they had changed to puzzled glances when they saw Jonna behind her.
“Uh, Johanna, it’s nice to see you and all, but the first part of this is really only for Marines,” Major Tolbert said. The major (Tamara still could not call her Bev), who had recently been braided, was not the senior gladiator of the eight, but she was the senior Marine.
“Show them, Jonna,” Tamara prompted.
Jonna pulled out the certificate and held it at arm’s length so they could see. “I’m an honorary Marine. It says so right here, signed by General Joab Ling, Commandant!”
“What? Really?” the major said, snatching the certificate. “Yeah, that’s what it says, all right,” she added, passing to Queen who took a quick look.
“Uh, I’ve got to ask, how did you get that?” the major continued, her brow wrinkled in confusion.
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