148. The Race
148
The Race
V alor
Our drones’ AI woke us with a ten-minute warning to get to the table for breakfast. We all know this will be the last challenge. We’re down to ten teams.
The three of us are sprawled almost in the same position we were when we dropped off to sleep last night—overlapping limbs, all three of us entangled. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I love her more every minute.
She’s so small and physically helpless. If I have to carry her the circumference of this damned asteroid, I’ll do so.
I smile to myself as I picture my smart, brave, and fierce female’s irate reaction if she knew I thought of her, even for a moment, as helpless.
Lifting her hair, I nuzzle the nape of her neck.
I should be feeling tense. I’m sure Zedd and TGN would love for us to be pissing our pants in fear right now, but I’ve been to war. I’ve faced my impending death hundreds of times in my life. It started before I learned to read when they pitted us geneslaves against each other.
I was often thrown into hand-to-hand combat with males ten years older than me. Sometimes I just received a good trouncing. Sometimes they allowed the matches to continue until we needed medical attention—which we seldom received.
We were valuable. That didn’t happen often, but we always knew it was a possibility. My life wasn’t just cheap to them. It became cheap to me.
Now that I have this, what I shared last night, my life is no longer easily expendable. Especially since it’s not just my life riding on my performance, but the two people I love.
Right now, though, before they tell us the next level of hell they’re going to subject us to, I’m going to bask in the new relationship we forged last night.
Valor, Braveheart’s thoughts find mine, we need to protect this female. Keep her safe.
Aye.
Willow. Braveheart. I think there’s now a direct mind connection between you. I tell them. Last night, once Braveheart accepted me into the bed, I sensed a strong psychic link among all three of us. It was literally like my third eye saw lacy green energetic connections pulsing between us.
Just like I didn’t know I could heal with my abilities, it appears I can create direct telepathic links. Try it. I’m going to disconnect.
They turn to each other and soon the pulsing chartreuse energy increases. A moment later, smiles bloom on both faces.
They turn to me and their mutual, shouted, It worked, blasts so loudly in my head I cringe. It takes only a moment for them both to send me a much softer, I’m sorry .
I wasn’t sure my face could smile until I met Willow, but now, my cheeks are stretched wide.
We emerge from our tent as a unit. We’re no longer three separate entities. We’re one team. It’s down to ten, but we have more than a ten percent chance of winning. Our team has two hardened, trained geneslaves. We’re more suited for this competition than the prison trash we’re competing against.
I glance up and down the table. Gronk is there in his baby blue coveralls with his Charthian female teammate and the Frain they were matched with. I never would have bet money he’d still be standing for the final competition.
Before I knew who he was matched with, I thought he’d kill his female before the end of the first night. The Charthian was a good choice because, with her natural protections of long spikes on her wrists, all she needs to do is backhand him to keep him at bay. By the healing puncture wounds on his palms and cheeks, it looks like she accomplished that the first morning of the competition.
Braveheart and I are stronger and better trained than anyone at this table. We’ll carry Willow to the finish line, just as I carried her yesterday, if we have to. My sprained ankle is pain-free, and Braveheart’s ankle is completely healed due to his genetics and perhaps a bit of my healing ability.
Removing the capsule that controlled the dampening compounds put us into soldier mode, which means we’re not only stronger, and mentally sharper, but our healing is greatly accelerated.
“Welcome, welcome,” Zedd says from all the screens assembled in this outdoor area.
She’s not at her anchor desk. She seems to be on a space vessel.
“Have you noticed I’m not in my newsroom? I’m flying to Blanterra for the final day of the competition. That’s right. Today’s not the final day. The Galaxy Network, in all its mercy, is giving these contestants an entire day to prepare.”
She lifts a perfect eyebrow as if to underscore how generous TGN is by giving us a day to get ready. If I know anything, whatever she has in store for us will be grueling.
“As I said last night, you would all receive perks depending on how much the audience appreciated your performance in your tents. Here’s the tote board. You can see for yourself.”
We’re already sitting and have helped ourselves to breakfast.
“Wow,” Willow says, her mouth full of whatever starch they’ve served us today.
I’m surprised we’re not at the bottom of the list, she says. We must have really raked in the credits last night. I would have bet no matter how well we performed, they would have kept us at the bottom. That female hates Earthers.
Aye, I say. Zedd hinted this would be a day off. We know what that means. It’s going to be strenuous. Eat up.
“Did I mention that I, myself, personally scouted this amazing asteroid?” Zedd says. “I seldom like the spotlight, but what you’re going to see today is going to remind you just how inventive TGN can be when they want to supply you with entertainment.
“Hurry up, contestants! We’ve got a hover-bus prepared and will be taking off with or without you in fifteen minutes.”
Finish eating, I tell Willow and Braveheart, I’ll run to the tent and gather our stuff.
I grab my plate and keep shoveling food in as I hurry to the tent.
Willow
An hour later, through the hover-bus windshield, we see some low-lying structures up ahead. All discussion on the bus has stopped as we strain to see what it is.
I thought Blanterra was a windblown asteroid with nothing but the mine and the prison they’d dug into the soil to house their forced labor. Something’s up ahead that’s made by humanoids. Whatever it is might mean our destruction.
The hover is equipped with large screens on both sides of the interior. The better to see Zedd.
“Well, viewers, all you’ve seen of this asteroid so far has been the sand-swept hell of the environment. What I’m sure you don’t know is that before there was a relatively small mine on one side of the asteroid, there was a much larger mine on the opposite side.
“At its height, the population swelled to almost one-hundred thousand. In those days, before the Galactic Federation allowed prisoners to be sentenced to these mining efforts, people were paid wages to do the hot and dirty jobs.”
Gee, how much more profitable it is when you can sentence people to hard labor for eating pies. Then you can force them to work for free.
“Almost by accident, Blanterra became somewhat of a destination for tourists in search of one thing—racing. At first, it was just miners racing each other on their days off. Males will be males.” She smirks. “Things escalated. The cars got faster with more entrants, and for a while, it was televised, although it never had near the viewership as The Game . Here we are.”
Her timing is impeccable. She said that just as we crest a reddish sandstone peak. Down below is a ghost town, surpassing any pictures I’ve seen of the old west. The relentless blowing sand somehow allowed shards of many buildings to remain standing. Perhaps because we’re in a bowl.
Pictures of the wyrms from yesterday bombard me. As if she read my mind, Zedd says, “The founders of this town, called Jaynesville, smartly built it on thick slabs of granite. There will be no wyrm invasion here. It would detract from our final contest.” She smirks, making me wonder what horrible final contest would rival yesterday’s carnage.
On the outskirts of the town is a large barn-like structure. That’s where we’re heading. It’s made of rusted corrugated metal, most of it is ancient, but some is gleaming and new. TGN must have swooped in and made some repairs to keep it structurally sound.
As the hover lands, we continue to watch Zedd explain the new contest.
“Females and males, we’re about to have ourselves a race. We’ve resurrected some of the racing vehicles they used back in the day. Our mechanics have been up day and night preparing these things to drive. As you can see…”
The camera pans over the football-field-sized area in front of the barn.
“We have ten refurbished vehicles. Time was short. Some have been fully resurrected to their former beauty, some are still pretty rusty. We had to rush to production to provide you the entertainment you deserve.”
Other than the last two weeks, my entire life in outer space has been in Mistress’s house doing cleaning, cooking, and watching vids with her. I don’t know much, but those don’t look like hovers.
Valor and Braveheart flank me on our seat. I squeeze their hands.
“The network has generously given our teams time today to choose their vehicles and do any additional modifications on them so that tomorrow they will compete in a race for your entertainment. I will guarantee that tomorrow we will live up to the name of the show. By the time the race is over, it will all come Down. To. Three.”