“We were wondering,” Deidra leaned close over the counter, “if you knew anything about the next challenge.”
“Donny!” Clarabelle barked. It was the most he’d ever been called to work during a single Olympia Gold. Clarabelle left him to deal with the drunken masses, and took Deidra and Galia to the back of the kitchen. “I do happen to know the next one because I’ve seen it before. It’s an event they used a few Olympias back. It’s called Thruway.”
“Thr… Thu… Thruway?” Deidra choked. Clarabelle’s eyes fluttered. She wiped them to hide just how much it hurt her - the answer to the question she’d never wanted to ask: Deidra did remember. Clarabelle cleared her throat and straightened up.
“It’s a freefall through the entire planet, using artificial gravity. Six-hundred miles of melee combat. Blunt weapons only,” she told Galia, specifically. Deidra already knew, she saw now. “Whoever’s conscious at the end wins the bonus for their team.”
“Wow,” Galia marveled, “Brutal… even for this crowd. Well, at least now we know what to focus on,” she patted Deidra’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” Deidra muttered, numb. Clarabelle’s voice bounced off her eardrums muffled, as if through a balled up towel.
“Here, take this,” she said, pulling something from a crate way in the back of the storeroom. “This will help you keep track of everything. I modded it a little, so never turn sensitivity past sixty percent, understand? The radiation will fry you.” Deidra nodded, numb. Her hands reached out to receive it automatically. It had a little heft to it, her hands remembered. It looked like a helmet of some kind, her eyes noted, through periphery. Her brain would recall none of it. Her mind was stuck on that abominable freefall.
“I’ve… got to get back to the bar before Donny sells us out. He hasn’t mastered the art of watering down quite yet,” said Clarabelle. She gave a mock little curtsey and vanished.
“Hey, everything alright?” Galia asked, when Deidra stood there, staring into space as if the barkeep never left.
“It will be,” said Deidra. She snapped free of the funk with a new fire in her eye, one Galia had yet to see. Not just fear-fueled adrenaline. Rage. She shouldered her way past her captain, “We’ve got a day and a half. Let’s go.”
Chapter Eleven: A Flash of Talons
“I’m still not sure…” Fogan muttered between the silent, agape mouth of a yawn, “Why we had to come out here at the asscrack of dawn.” She twitched upright when her captain piped up from behind her.
“Glad you brought it up, Fogan!” Galia shouted, so the whole crew would hear. They were well out past the modern metropolis of silver towers and shimmering, magnetic hover streets around the Thruway. The crew of the Dreamweaver had exchanged the comfortable sheets of their heated rooms and the lulling trickle of water features that emptied into their exquisite floors for the chill of the morning in the grassy fields around the Forge. It was the only place Galia had scoped out where spectators or other teams might not spot them from the right angle. “It’s been brought to my attention that some of you are concerned for the safety of our newest member,” Gali announced, much to Deidra’s flushed cheeks. “What do we say on this ship, gang?”
“If one of us is in trouble, then the crew is in trouble,” voices droned back from across the slumping line of stair-sailers. The sound of it, however tired and off-key, put an odd warmth in Deidra’s chest.
“Good, you remember. If you forget every last one of my rules, you remember that one,” Galia said. She let a crisp breath of wind take over for her voice for a few seconds. “Now, Delia and Crow are down, and we lost one. It’s less than most have lost already, but more than we ever have before… Carol.” Galia bowed her head in respect for the woman, the still-fresh wound in her crew. “Yes, we picked up Deidra just after. Make no mistake. She is no place holder. I expect her to work, to do her part in and off the Dreamweaver. To protect you all, and me. I expect all of you to protect her. That’s why we’re here, at dawn’s glorious asscrack. To train for the next challenge, together. We could all use a refresher. A little team bonding, fists to foreheads.” At this Galia fell back to give her voice a rest. Rey filled the void her projecting voice left behind.
“Alright everyone, pair up!” he issued, “Fogan, you’re with Cap’. Demetri and Kostic.” That left only Deidra and himself without a partner. He smirked at her, “You’re with me, sunshine.”
“Bri-uh-bring it on,” Deidra sputtered, like a dragon testing its fire for the first time. Rey snorted.
“Appreciate the effort, but cocky’s not your look,” he said. That gave Deidra just the boot she needed for when Galia announced:
“Knuckles up!”
Rey and Deidra’s fists popped up at the ready as one. She jammed the switch on the ends of her cylindrical weapons just like the captain had shown her. A shell of pressure emitted around Deidra’s fists, trapping the particles in the air as a solid barrier. Invisible gauntlets Galia had called them. Everyone in the crew had a pair. Everyone clicked them on. “We’ve got other weapons, but those will be easy to lose grip on in a six-hundred-mile freefall. These are easy to hold. You can make a fist, you can use these. They pack a solid punch, so they’re a solid bet. Alright. Beat the tar out of each other.” Galia’s first lesson commenced - to stay on your toes. She dove at Fogan without warning. The enormous gunner Demetri lugged a fist for the pigtailed tech operator, Kostic. Deidra sprung for Rey.
Surprised as he was at her initiative, he sidestepped her blow. As per the captain’s instruction, he held nothing back from the hammer of his fist on the back of her head. Things went fuzzy for Deidra. Her knee drove down into the grass, but so too did her other foot. She used it to kick back. Deidra flung herself right back at her opponent, swinging wildly with both invisible gauntlets. One of them missed Rey’s nose by a hair. He swept his ankle, which took out both of Deidra’s legs. No sooner than her back crunched the grass did Rey fall on her. His pressurized fist impressed itself in the green blades instead of Deidra. She rolled a foot over, onto her knees.
Deidra launched again, fist cracking out like it was loaded on a spring. Rey’s neck craned away from it. A simple grasp of her wrist was enough to unbalance her with her own force. Deidra stumbled straight into the freight train of Rey’s knuckles
. Her head cocked back, and right back down. She couldn’t decide between the splitting delusions of her blurry foe, so Deidra picked one and swung. She passed through Rey’s phantom, and winced for the counterstrike. She was surprised to find a gentle arm around her stomach when she stumbled, rather than another clock to the skull.
“Alright, sunshine. On your feet,” said Rey, “You know how to take a damn punch, that’s for sure. You know how to bounce back, too. That’s good, but you’re no good to us floating stiff, got it? Don’t be afraid to fall back a second to get your bearings again.”
“Go-got it,” Deidra sniffled. She wiped a streak of scarlet across her face from the faucet of her nose. She shook her head until Rey condensed into a solid image again - one she intended to see with his back on the grass. She made it all of five swings, and even threw one of his away, before Galia’s first lesson concluded.
“Knuckles up!” she barked. Everyone took the ready position, but none struck. They waited on the edge of a strike until Galia went on to the second lesson of the day. “I see good things happening, but we all know by now that none of us have just one opponent. It’s a free-for-all out there. You’ve got to switch between strategies as per who you’re up against. Rapidly. Let’s practice that. Doesn’t matter who to, when I say switch, you switch. Do your best to blindside someone, and not to get blindsided yourself. Switch!”
Galia went for Deidra. She didn’t have a chance to see where Rey or anyone else went. She hardly had a chance to get her invisible gauntlets up. Deidra ducked under a blow. She went for a jab at Galia’s gut. By the time Deidra’s fist got there, her target wasn’t. Galia repeated the maneuver intended for her. Her invisible gauntlet buried itself in Deidra’s fluttering stomach.
“Why are you doing this?” said Galia. She shrunk back from Deidra’s leg sweep.
“What?”
“Why are you doing this?” Galia repeated, with the addition of a punch. Deidra took a page from Rey’s skillset and swept the strike to the side of her. Her captain was barely able to hide how impressed she was as she reclaimed her balance. Deidra swung and missed.