“Thank you,” said Koslav Gold.
Time froze for Galia. This moment was the culmination of ten years of work. It had to freeze. She took it all in. The musty tavern. The people in it; potential combatants. There were countless men and women like Roran; too big to see the people beneath them, the ones binding their ankles. There were a few calculating ones, sitting back quietly. They nursed booze to keep their mouths occupied while their ears drank in every last bit of information. They were more dangerous, but also obvious in their own way. There were people like Galia. Well, there was her, anyway. It’d be impossible to tell if anyone else was like her, listening like the calculators while acting like the big dogs. Those were even worse, the ones she’d never see coming.
Then there was the man in the corner. He was the most confusing, if not the most dangerous himself. That man had been eying Galia from afar all night, but he hadn’t said a word. Not to anyone. He hadn’t ordered a drink or food. He just sat there, in the far corner, in his pinstripe gray suit jacket with a black tie underneath. His few inches of blond hair were slicked back so his bright, almost unnatural jade eyes could watch Galia with nothing in the way. His lips curled in the slightest whisper of a smile.
“Thank you all,” Koslav said again, and time ticked on once more. “Viewers. Participants. Gold Standard crew. None of this could happen without you. On this fifty-sixth year of the Olympia Gold intergalactic competition, I implore you all to remember why it began. Directing the flow of economy towards research, towards helping people. Competitors, good luck. Spectators, enjoy the show. Thank you.” Koslav nodded with one last charming smile. The screen blinked black, then back to color with a very different face.
“Hel-lo everyone! Thanks always to Mr. Gold for his outstanding speech,” announced Cybil, announcer of the Olympia Gold for twenty-five years running. He bowed to show his technicolor braid of hair. His face popped back up with a painfully white grin that burned through the rest of his dark face. An old man, one of his eyes had been replaced with a bright red prosthesis that intentionally clashed with his natural blue one. “I won’t try to compete with the man himself. Let’s get on with the announcement you’re all tingling to hear. The roster for the fifty-sixth Olympia Gold!” The tavern erupted in a momentary thunder of fists on tables.
“About damn time!” Roran and about ten other carbon copies of him piped up from around the tavern. Galia rolled her eyes, until Rey squeezed her shoulder with a reassuring hand. He didn’t need words to tell her: we’ll get in. Galia looked to him to answer with a silent look: we’d better. She clenched her knees under the table to hide just how nervous she was that they might not. As quickly as it had loudened, the bar silenced again.
“The first crew is… the Hammer!” Cybil announced. Rex and his crew cheered from behind Galia. The name came with a brief collage of pictures- the ship and each crew member. It also came with a number. A survival rating, based on data from previous Olympias. The scale ran from 0 at the bottom to 70 at the top, seven intervals of ten to represent the seven participating teams. The Hammer’s rating was 53, putting them towards the top end. Every crew tensed between participants’ names, only to burst out in screams or sighs with the next.
“Scorch!” Their rating was 35, even. Galia felt like throwing fists at the celebratory eruption that almost tipped their table. Her knuckles went white all the way up until Cybil called out,
“Dreamweaver!”
“We’re in!” Rey murmured under the rumble of the rest of their crew. Their restraint sent a pulse of pride straight to Galia’s brain, even as their pictures appeared on the screen. She was a little insulted at their 30 rating, but still, we made it.
“Whoo!” she permitted herself a single hoot, then crossed her arms and smiled for
the duration of the crew announcements.
“The Torrent!” They were branded at 20. Galia figured they would be the bottom of the range. After all, Gold was a showman - his company didn’t often include throw-away teams on the roster. Nonetheless, Cybil went on to say:
“Brazen!” the number 8 flicked across the screen. Galia had hardly recovered from the unbelievable number when she realized she knew two of the faces in the pictures beneath the obviously Gold Standard ship. It was Devin and Deidra, if her memory served correctly.
“The Terra Eagle!” Cybil called out with all the gusto the title deserved. She was, after all, a regular year after year. Some people applied to participate in the Olympia just to meet the Terra Eagle, her crew, and her ship of the same name. She was one of few participants no one would find in a tavern before the games. How and where the Terra Eagle prepared for the Olympia Gold was as much a mystery as the face beneath her exosuit mask. The survival rating of 66 beside her picture was no surprise.
“Daniel,” said Cybil last. Just when Galia thought their competition had reached the height of shock. A single combatant. It was rare, but it happened. The Terra Eagle was one of few that had done it and lived to tell the tale. What was more, Galia recognized Daniel. Her eyes bolted for the corner of the room. It was empty. The smirking man in the pinstripe suit had vanished from the tavern, only to appear on the screen under the name. Daniel.
“That has to be a mistake, right?” Galia whispered to Rey, when Daniel’s survival rating scrolled up on the screen.
“I don’t think The Gold Standard hires mathematicians that make mistakes,” Rey mumbled back. True that might be, Galia wasn’t sure she trusted her own eyes. Daniel had entered the Olympia Gold alone, only to be assigned a survival rating of 60.
“That’s all, folks. Your contestants for the fifty-sixth Olympia Gold. Stay tuned for previews of the challenges, and footage from the Prelude that kicks it all off tomorrow,” Cybil smiled into the camera until the screen faded to black.
“Unbelievable,” Galia’s mouth hung somewhere between a grin and a gasp. It was all too much to digest at once. In the gap between the end of the broadcast and the beginning of idle conversation around the bar, a familiar burn flared up in Galia’s chest. She buried her face in her elbow to muffle a cough. It was a sound Rey knew all too well.
“Hey,” he put a hand back on Galia’s shoulder. She batted it away. “Hey, you need-”
“Don’t,” Galia silenced him, before another cough scratched her throat. “Stay. Don’t tell the others where I am. Make sure they enjoy this.” Rey gave her a solemn nod and looked away. He bought their crew another round and slid mugs out to everyone. He had to keep their eyes off their captain, who vanished into the bathroom. “Hello?” Galia coughed as soon as the door shut behind her. No response. She locked the bathroom door and latched herself in a stall.
Galia hardly got the tiny tin bottle out of her pocket before the coughs brought her to her knees. The word taxotrol was etched in its side. She leaned over the toilet as the spasms turned into wheezes. Her fingers tightened and burned, almost useless. Hot irons poked through her veins, sprouting out further from her lungs with each hoarse cough. Galia twisted the lid off her bottle and shook out two glossy purple capsules. Her shaky hand flattened across her lips. The high-dosage painkillers tumbled down her throat. They couldn’t dissolve fast enough.
Galia dropped the bottle, then her shoulders. Her chest flinched against the tile floor with each hard cough. Her fingers fumbled through the pills all around her. She clenched an indiscriminate handful more and tossed them into her numb mouth. Blood and thoughts ballooned up to the top of Galia’s skull. Darkness swirled around the edges of her vision, but she wasn’t afraid. This was hardly the first time things had gotten this far - she’d be back on her feet before anyone else had to use the bathroom.
“Unbelievable,” Deidra muttered to the tiny TV screen in the storeroom of the Forge. She, of course, was talking about the recap of the roster announcement containing the Brazen, and her picture, not the transformation her home was about to undergo.
“It doesn’t have to be tonight… but you better believe it before you get out there,” said Clarabelle. She laid a calloused but gentle hand on Deidra’s back. She had no idea of the strings Clarabelle pulled to get their crew in the roster, despite their ridiculous survival rating. She knew, better than any Gold Standard mathematician that those kids had something no algorithm could quantify. Hurt. Drive. Grit. “Believe it, Deidra. And go buckle down, would you? We’re about to leave.” said Clarabelle.
The floorboards shook. Window panes rattled, at least until their magnetic protector plates tightened. Clay crumbled away from the steel deck around the outside of the Forge, before it split into four pieces and folded beneath the building. A panel of light disks emitted invisible heat to lift the bar from Greymoor’s bleak surface. It scorched a rim around the crater where its foundation had dug in. Residents and visitors of Ganera gazed up into the black to watch the neon beacon rise as it did every year. The Forge’s auxiliary wings deployed from its sides. They tilted to point it towards the dark satellite planet, Ares. Its jets flared while Clarabelle buckled herself into the bridge above the bar.
She piloted the Forge and her crew of Gold Standard misfits towards the grounds of the Olympia Gold.
Chapter Six: Prelude
“Ease up, ease up,” Deidra mumbled, more to herself than an actual suggestion.