

### A Leap of Fate

Episode Six

### The Games of the Triad

Smashwords Edition

By

G. L. Fontenot

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### What is Fate?

Typically, fate is destiny's evil twin. But every once in a great while they merge, overlap, or collide with one another until they appear as one, like when the last skirmish of a long battle is finally over and you find yourself standing there broken, bloodied, and exhausted...but alive!

G. L. Fontenot

### Prologue

Aboard the _Darlile_ , headed for Rauld;

Angela took another step toward the Portal and extended one hand to Ron, gently beckoning him.

Brushed aside was his previous dilemma, overwhelmed by those hopes, dreams, and plans that had come before. His mind was flooded with memories of their short life together...the deep, purity of their innocent hearts as they bonded with the fiery fervor of youth...their courtship and marriage...and the long, extremely passionate nights. Even though he knew for certain they could never be that couple again, he longed to touch her...to hold her...and to have her acknowledge that he still existed in her heart...that their time together had enriched her as much as it had him. After that, he was convinced he could move on without regrets.

Their fingertips were barely a foot apart, and the tug on Ron's surging emotions was nearly too great to dally further...but still he hesitated. A slight, silent, yet nagging tingle held him back. Something just wasn't right.

With incredible strength of will, he managed to break his wife's gaze to glance at Cache.

"Cache, how's Sheyah?" he asked pointedly.

The momentary hesitation and blank expression on her face was like an electric jolt, sending his mind further along into growing suspicion.

"Fine," she said, restoring her warm smile immediately. "She's asleep! It's nighttime here."

That simple statement sent a bone-rattling chill racing up his spine instantaneously.

"Shit!" he gasped.

Cache never used contractions...and there was no "night" on Rauld!

As quick as a flash, he spun on his heel and dove for the weapons' storage, but a rope flew out of the Portal even quicker and looped about his broad shoulders, stopping him fast. He leaned against it, his hands on the compartment where the black sword was stored, but those on the other end of the snare snapped him back hard enough that his feet left the floor. His eyes soon flared wide as he soared through the transporter in mid-air.

Ron was blinded by an intensely bright flash of light an instant before his body struck a stone surface, squarely on his back. He felt the rope slip from his shoulders and so used the momentum of his motion to continue into a rolling maneuver, until his feet were once more beneath him. When his toes felt firm ground, he paused for a split lita.

His Caronian eye-glands immediately flooded in to restore his sight, but not quickly enough to allow him to react before a tremendous blow from an unknown weapon smashed against the side of his face. That strike took him completely off his feet again, and sent him to the ground in a daze, spitting blood.

Ron's survival mode immediately jumped to the maximum, fast enough to let him scramble away on his knees and take a quick look around.

The air stank with an acidic tinge, having the reminiscences of the smell of ammonia venting from a chemical plant located outside his hometown. Oddly enough though, the stench actually helped him back to clear-headedness.

There were more than twenty men about him, forming a circle like a fighting ring, and one man (if you could call him that) stood inside it with him. He was a huge, thick fellow with a neck so powerful it seemed to be part of his gigantic, bulging shoulders. His attire consisted of a black skirt hanging to midway on his thighs with a rope tied across his thick middle, gauntlets of metal from his wrists to his forearms, and animal skin boots which ended just above the ankle. The skin tone of the brute was a deep red color. His arms bulged with immense, corded muscles and his torso was as solid as a rhinoceros's, standing on the equivalent of tree trunks for legs. He stood atop feet which were broad...much wider than a normal man's...and almost elephant-like.

That bizarre, menacing creature took two steps toward Ron and the ground shook with each of them. His face was fashioned much as the rest of him...wide, solid, and seemingly impenetrable.

Ron locked his glare on eyes that were misshapen brown globs of cornea set against a bright yellow backdrop, and no doubt would have inspired fear in almost any man. The fighter's head was shaved bald, half of his left ear was missing, apparently having been bitten off from the shape of the remaining portion, and he was decorated with scars from a thousand battles.

Ron looked at his oversized hands, wondering what weapon he'd used against him on that first strike, and his mind received another shock. The man held nothing! It was a fist which had pounded him to the turf. Ron moved to stand and realized one more startling little tidbit. The gravity was strong there, far more powerful than Rauld, or even Caron.

"I am Draake Tarbold...your new master!" the giant croaked at Ron. "This is Parkanick, the prison facility on the Cordonian Moon! And if you cannot fight...you will surely die!"

### Chapter One

### Parkanick

"I have no quarrel with you!" Ron growled at the giant alien in what he thought was the creature's native tongue. "Leave me be!"

Draake bent down and looked into Ron's eyes for a long lita, and then broke into a fit of laughter. The men around the pair joined in somewhat, but theirs was more of a nervous chortle.

At that close proximity, Ron noticed a metallic-looking disk mounted to the giant's throat, and when he finished his loud guffaw, he regarded Ron once again, pressing that disk with a finger the size of a salami.

"You do not understand," the huge creature said, but there was a half-lita delay while the device reconfigured it into a more commonly understood language. However, his growling, choppy speech was clearly separated and so Ron's own, much more sophisticated translator, began deciphering his species' peculiar dialect.

"There are only twenty-one cells assigned to our block. There are twenty-one of us. One food ration per cell...so only one man per cell. You make twenty-two! Get me?"

Ron looked around at the motley group of hapless souls and began to comprehend the situation.

"Why was I brought here?"

"How the dragen sart would I know?"

"Who's in charge? Who can I...?"

For an answer, Draake lunged at Ron again. For such a huge being, he was abnormally swift, and managed to swat Ron a solid blow to the shoulder before he could get clear. It felt like he'd be hit with a cinder block, and he was knocked from his feet again.

Ron carried his momentum through an awkward tumble and popped up facing Draake, his attitude turning dire and stern. This fellow was extremely strong, and no doubt as tough as he looked, but Ron Allison didn't falter in his wish to defend himself. He slowly began to circle the giant, to gauge an enumerable amount of reactionary signals that would tell him what...if anything...was the man's weakness.

"Did you not hear me, little man? I am in charge!"

"Then you must know who..."

"Shut up, human! Shut your mouth and make your choice of who you will challenge for the right to survive here!"

Ron didn't fully understand how this new reality was going to work, but as he glanced from one face to the next, he could easily tell that they did. Every last man was now glaring at him as if he were a mortal enemy. One of them would have to die to allow him the chance at life...or vice-versa.

He saw ten male humans in the encircling pack, so he focused predominantly on them. The men were all large, at least as big as Ron, and there wasn't a single individual that appeared less fit than the next. Undoubtedly this place culled out even the slightest weakness from the group.

Aside from the human men was a variety of other beings that would have made any Earthman question his sanity. Luckily for Ron, he had at least some forewarning of those species from his schooling on Rauld.

Ron counted another three individuals that stood out as Galacians. They had very widely spaced eyes with ears that looked like they belonged on a bat. Their hair was thick and straight, brown like milk chocolate, and grew out to about two inches in length to resemble a stiff brush. Their skin was dark as well, somewhere between burnt orange and charcoal, and they had only three fingers and a thumb, each showing inch-long claws akin to talons more so than a human's nails.

Two others had dirty, short, dark-green hair and pink eyes. Their skin had a scaly, brown/tan mottled pattern to it. They were Cilicates, from a planet which was mostly marshy, wet, and humid. Ron fleetingly wondered how they could live in this environment, as dry as it seemed. They were bipeds, like most of the others in the gathering, but had webbed feet and fingers. Their snouts were longer than any other humanoid there, but not so overly pronounced that they could be compared with an Earth alligator. More like a common gecko.

The next alien group consisted of quadrupeds...Parmanians. They sent Ron's mind straight to the Earth myths about Centaurs, but with some odd twists. These creatures weren't hoofed on their supporting legs, but instead had heavily padded paws like a canine, only much larger. They stood about half the height of a horse and bore two arms very similar to a man's on their torsos, which were short and stout. Another irregularity was that they had six digits on each of their hands, of which two were thumbs...on opposing sides. They alone wore no clothing, and their hides appeared to be armored, like a rhinoceros's, except that they were multicolored. Their legs were thick and no doubt very powerful, and they stood calmly by as the proceedings took place, with no worry at all about their position in the group. Their faces were stern and solid like the rest of their structures, and bestial, giving Ron the impression of an orangutan.

And lastly, behind Draake were two more of his kind...making a total of three from whatever race he was...and one was holding the coil of rope used to snatch Ron into their realm.

"Now," Draake continued, "before you select, let me make something perfectly clear...just in case you aren't too bright!"

Ron's irritation with Draake rose another level. He didn't like the condescending manner of the giant.

"Whosever place you take, you have to eat their food rations, which are specifically engineered for each race. And then you have to do their work...no slacking on the tally of ore! It must be met or none of us get fed!"

Draake took a step toward Ron threateningly. "Do you understand?"

Ron nodded his answer as he continued his inspection...but that didn't satisfy Draake.

"Say it!" he growled in a voice like rolling thunder.

That snapped Ron's attention back to him in a flash. He was nearly vibrating from a mixture of anger, confusion, indignity, and stubborn determination. Everything inside him wanted to attack the colossal being ordering him around like a ten-year-old...but his reason was able to stay his rage. He didn't know what to expect there, what went on there, or how he could possibly escape, so he saw little choice in his immediate future.

"Yes...I understand!" he hissed through clenched teeth.

"Good! Now get on with it. We must return to the mine!"

Ron quickly discarded all aliens from his target group and approached the throng of men off to his right. The assemblage drifted apart to allow each individual room to stand clearly free of the others, for the newcomer's inspection.

The inmates were a rough-looking lot. Half were as large as Ron and the rest were bigger...four were much bigger. And the men all showed signs of a brutal life. They were well-scarred, filthy, wild animals who wore heavy-duty, yet tattered uniforms, and had a look in their eyes that showed their personal confidence. Fear could not be found in any of their number, so Ron picked one man who looked particularly excited. The fellow was practically drooling at the prospect of a death-match...he wanted to fight that bad!

"You!"

The fellow grinned and showed he was missing three teeth, with a crazed gleam in his eyes that could only be described as maniacal. Every other human man just shook their head and snickered softly, as if to suggest that the match was already over.

"New guy's dead!" Ron heard from behind him, uttered by one of the bat-eared men.

The crowd stepped quickly to the side, and Ron wondered why. There was a great amount of murmuring and snorting from the small bands of aliens while Ron stretched his muscles and tried to adapt to the strange environment.

"Ckess, you know the rules!" Draake barked at the prisoner Ron had picked out. "You!' he snarled at Ron. "This is a fight to the death!"

"My name is..."

"You have no name! Now shut your mouth before you have to battle me!"

Ron felt his fury building again in a rush. His pride was one thing, but he felt this creature's clear disdain for him would one day force a clash between them...it already seemed inevitable.

"Only one will walk away from this bout! Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"There are no illegal moves or blows. Any weapon you have, you can use. Understand?"

"Yes," Ron replied as he picked up on what looked like the passing of objects amid hands in the human huddle. "Shit!" he grumbled. "So much for a fair fight."

The ring of bodies quickly reformed about the pair of combatants, and then they began. Ron immediately dropped into a defensive, crouching stance, his fists up like a boxer, and his weight on the balls of his feet. Ckess moved in flat-footed, with no regard for protecting himself. He walked straight at Ron...his eyes wide and flashing a sick grin. He would test the new man's mettle the old fashioned way.

Ckess's first punch contacted Ron's blocking arms and cleared them out of way. That knocked Ron harshly to the side and made room for the second blow, which struck solidly on Ron's left shoulder, pushing him even further away and completely numbing that arm.

"Geez!" Ron hissed as he stumbled to the side, hurriedly shaking his hand to try to restore circulation. Ckess was amazingly quick and surprisingly powerful! "A tenner for sure...maybe more," he concluded.

The adrenaline surging into Ron's body suddenly kicked in full force as he realized this would not be a simple fight of who was the most experienced. They closed again and Ron returned to his strategy. He needed to know just who he was dealing with. Ckess's shoulder lurched as if he would repeat the last attack, but instead, his left fist shot forward with startling speed, slipping in low to get under Ron's block, and struck him in the stomach...lifting him off his feet.

A huge expulsion of air escaped Ron's lips as he fell back...again scrambling desperately to stay on his feet.

"Son of a...!" he thought while sucking in air hard. "This guy's quick!"

It had been a long while since he'd faced a truly formidable opponent, but his instincts were catching up fast.

Ckess didn't rush the bout any. He looked to his fellows in the crowd and laughed.

"Pretty boy's just a load of fresh meat!" he announced wryly.

Ron's vision began to tint to a dull shade of rose while his opponent boasted. He stretched out his torso again, refilling his emptied lungs. Then he took up his stance once more.

Ckess closed again, but this time he attacked with a flurry of blurred punches that hammered against Ron's forearms in a blistering barrage. Ron never took boxing lessons in his youth, but he didn't need to be a genius of tactics or style to realize what he had to do; he had to survive! That meant absorbing an onslaught of blows that forced him back even though he leaned heavily against them, and it also meant keeping his arms in front even when the pain from every striking knuckle seared his brain. In merely a dozen litas, he could no longer feel his hands due to the pounding, and a few more found his arms quickly growing weary from the strain of the assault...so Ron made a desperate maneuver. He took a half step back and his right foot shot out to contact Ckess in the gut with a powerful kick that stopped the fellow's attack cold, stunning him into obvious amazement.

Ckess was breathing hard by then, and Ron wondered if he saw more than surprise in his eyes...as if few had made it this far against him. Ron dropped his arms and shook them forcefully, trying to restore the blood-flow and the feeling. He didn't have much time however, since Ckess wasn't about to let up, so he danced away from his adversary nimbly, still evaluating him.

Ckess wasn't a true boxer either. He was a brawler...a street fighter...and he smelled blood. He was a bit too hasty though, and rushed in to cut off Ron's escape with a new round of blows. What he found however was a foe that was no fool...one who had fully anticipated that brash move.

When Ckess threw a huge left, Ron leaned out enough to have it graze his chin, but as that fist flashed by, his knee shot up to contact Ckess in the ribs with enough force to make _his_ feet leave the ground.

"Hooooooffff!" released from Ckess's mouth as he doubled over and fell back.

Ron's stint in the Retribution Games had taught him that allowing his opponent any time to recover was a poor (and most often deadly) strategy, so he followed the retreating fellow immediately.

Now it was Ckess who strained to deflect a rain of incoming fists.

Ron still had little feeling in his hands, but his iron knuckles slammed against his adversary's blocking arms with blinding rapidity, returning some of the punishment he'd just received.

Ckess didn't need anyone to tell him to get out of that position, even though many shouts were saying exactly that, and so he opened his guard and lunged at Ron, receiving a solid punch to his nose in the process. Blood spewed from that broken feature but didn't slow him down at all. He carried his attack through Ron's waling offense and tackled him.

Onto the dust-covered stone surface they went, grappling each other like two professional wrestlers...only this was far from staged!

Ron was dazed badly from the impact of the crazed brute slamming him to the rocky ground, and with the weight of Ckess atop him, it was even more disorienting. Nevertheless, he managed to hang on to the writhing, kicking, twisting foe and keep him from gaining an advantage while he recovered his senses.

Ckess was a fiend of energy and muscle though, and so even with Ron's incredible strength holding him back it was only a matter of time before he broke through. They rolled across the ground several times before Ckess shook free enough to get a forearm into Ron's cheek, driving it home with his entire shoulder behind it.

Ron's head snapped to the right viciously and he saw stars, but he still managed to jab his free fist into Chess's throat firmly enough to make him break loose and scramble away, coughing and gasping for air.

As they both found their way back to a standing position, blood leaked down the two of them. Ron had a nice gash at the back of his head from being crushed to the stony ground, and Ckess spit and blew the thick red stuff from his nose and mouth.

They charged back together at that point, with Ckess delivering a loud, angry cry and Ron answering with the deep, primal growl of the Caronian wild-man within. The boxing was done, and they were into a full-out, no holds barred clash of flying fists, feet, knees, and even heads. Ckess could take the most powerful punches and kicks that Ron could deliver, and Ron did likewise, until...

Ckess saw an opening in Ron's defense after connecting with a good right shot that made Ron's head recoil. He followed that up with a perfectly positioned round-house punch that he'd used many times in the past to fell an opponent. It was only good though when his foe was at least slightly dazed because he reached back an extra bit to get as much power behind it as he could. With a guttural grunt, he brought that blow screaming in at Ron's unprotected temple...a strike that surely would drop him, if not kill him, and he smiled inwardly.

As Ckess's broad fist hurtled in at him however, Ron suddenly changed his appearance of unstable and defensive and squared his shoulders to the blow, dipping his head forward just enough to align it with that deadly punch. Instead of the relatively soft, vulnerable temple, Ckess's fist struck the upper part of Ron's forehead with all the power he could muster, and his knuckles shattered against the dense bone of Ron's heavy-worlder skull. And to compound such a crippling injury, the shockwave of that collision transferred up his arm, compressing so violently that his wrist exploded as well, sending white-hot pain searing into his brain with instantaneous results.

Ckess screamed one quick, high-pitched yelp of utter agony and fell back straight away, staggering to one knee while cradling his destroyed hand. His eyes instantly changed from filled with bloodlust to overflowing with panic, his gut threatening to expel everything in it from a mind-numbing wave of nausea.

Ron too fell back, his vision doubling horribly due to the blow, and his neck feeling at least an inch shorter. He gripped his head tightly in his hands to calm the ringing, and breathed deeply...then he shook the fog from his thoughts. When he could focus again, he moved in against Ckess like a lion against a wounded gazelle.

The alien man stood to meet his attack, but now was sorely hampered, and Ron overpowered him quickly with a flying wheel-house kick that put him to the rocky ground again. Now it was Ckess who lay at the feet of the bystanders...all of whom were suddenly very quiet, even shocked.

Ron lunged for him, but never made it because a new twist leaped into the bout. One of those watching...an ally of Ckess's...suddenly lashed out with his foot to connect with Ron's ribs, and then another's heavy fist smashed into his jaw. The blows were incredibly solid and would have rattled him even if prepared, but being blind-sided like that took him off his feet and destroyed any attack he'd planned.

Ron fell hard, dazed badly, but had enough of instinctual reaction to roll away from Ckess and his partners...to put distance between them so he might be able to regroup. But that wasn't the plan for his foe!

A crude knife quickly slipped into Ckess's good hand, a gift from one of his comrades, and so he pushed through his own unsteadiness to make a new attack.

Ron saw a blurry shape racing towards him just in time to let his body collapse backwards to the turf to avoid the collision. As it was though, Ckess slashed at his falling figure and raked his ribs with the blade, opening a foot-long gash across Ron's chest.

Blood poured down his abdomen as Ron popped to his feet once more, and the red haze of fury was instantly full-on in his brain. These was no longer a necessary bout he needed to win; one that he would regret having been forced into, and lament the taking of another's life in order to survive. Now it was a duel of absolute irrevocability and he felt no compunction whatsoever when he released the beast within.

With a quick shake of his shaggy head, Shartae of Caron was loosed...and a more deadly force had never been seen by his opponent!

Ckess wheeled about and charged Ron, but that was an incredibly foolish plan. The alien fighter was extremely strong, his body clearly showing fine musculature and his class 10.2 birthplace giving him an obvious advantage, but he'd never even dreamed of a creature like Shartae. That was because his previous adversaries had always been men, with at least moderate considerations of moral, ethical, or rational thoughts. Now unfortunately, what stood before him was something else entirely...something brutal, unforgiving, and completely merciless. The being Ckess suddenly found himself clashed with still looked like a man...yet what glared back at him was an inconceivably fierce, cunning, and vicious animal!

Adrenaline, fury, and sheer willpower aided Ron to excel beyond what a normal human could manage, and when that eight inch, hand-made knife whistled down at him, he reacted with speed, precision, and strength that could not be breached.

Ckess's entire body was behind his thrust, and would have crushed any other man's defense...as he always had in the past...but he was stopped cold, as if pouncing on a statue of solid granite. The knife managed to penetrate Ron's skin about half an inch into his right pectoral muscle...but there it froze in space while a deep, rumbling growl issued forth from the broad chest of Shartae.

That utterance sounded like a different beast to each man, depending on what creatures they were accustomed to on their own planets, but to someone from Earth it would have mimicked a very large, very angry Bengal tiger.

Ckess was leaning into the attack so forcefully that his face and Ron's ended up barely an inch apart, and held there for a long moment. In that time period, he looked into the ebony eyes of a pure demon...one whose dire expression bespoke volumes as to his intent. In that moment, Ckess Hirie saw his death!

Ron then moved with the swiftness of a leopard. His left knee shot up and into Ckess's ribs with enough force to crush four of them and send them shredding his liver and lung with their splintered shards. His left hand then grabbed Ckess's throat in its vice-like grip that collapsed the man's larynx in an instant, and his right wrenched the knife around to plunge it to the hilt into Ckess's heart.

Ckess's expression was one of utter bewilderment, but Shartae the Invincible wasn't done!

In the blink of an eye, Ron swapped his grip to Ckess's head and with all the strength he could gather, he pivoted his bulging frame around the man's body, snapping his neck with a stomach churning, sharply echoing "crack".

Those forming the fighting circle all heard that explosion of bone and cartilage, and they all felt the same inner twinge of nausea at the sound, but two of them also felt an additional gut-wrenching response...fear!

Ron kicked Ckess's corpse to the stone without another thought, but he was yet unsatisfied. The baritone rumbling from his primal self then erupted into a louder challenging snarl with his teeth exposed...his eyes now searching the ring of enemies that surrounded him. His deadly gaze instantly locked onto the fellows who'd assisted Ckess in the fight and he took a step toward the men, his body quivering and quaking with malice.

It was as if the Reaper himself had suddenly materialized to claim his pound of flesh, and those two men instantaneously threw their hands up into the air and began retreating.

"We had to, man!" one of the men blurted frantically. "We owed him...but we don't have a quarrel with you! It's over! Okay? It's over!"

Thanks solely to Josylinia Gitove's unbelievable patience after his time in Caron's Retribution Games, Ron had managed to find a way to reign in the terror of those days...to bottle up the beast he'd been forced to unleash to survive those bouts. That ability was the only way the reasoning portion of Ron's brain was able to quell his approach now. But as he glared around at those gathered, he fully expected the fight was not finished, and as the wild, bellowing call of the Aredanz Mountain Folk tore from his lips, he stood ready for that battle.

The human men who stared at him at that moment suddenly felt a new and profound feeling of awe. Ckess was the most feared and respected fighter of their entire group. He was cunning, strong, and vicious, and had proven himself in more than two dozen such bouts. None in their crowd...even the larger brutes...had ever thought to challenge him. Now this newcomer had accomplished what they felt couldn't be done. Even while visibly bewildered by his sudden abduction and thrown into this new environment, taken off guard by a lowly and cowardly act, and a weapon was given to Ckess, this stranger had utterly destroyed him.

Just who was this man? Where did he come from? And more importantly to those who'd aided Ckess...what would he do next?

Those were the thoughts of every soul in attendance.

Draake stood off to the side with his arms folded across his enormous chest. His stare was emotionless, merely seeing and gathering information. What he had witnessed was promising. He'd never liked Ckess anyway.

"Back to work you dragen whores!" he barked. "We still have ten billots of duty-time!"

The crowd surrounding Ron suddenly broke from their positions with a startled jerk. Apparently, Ron gathered, Draake was not someone to ignore.

As they filed away, giving Ron a wide berth, the heat of battle began to ebb from his thoughts, and the haze of animal madness receded to allow the man to regain himself fully. His chest still heaved from the combination of the fight, the heat, the acidic air, and the gravity, but he didn't fully loosen up until the strangers were all away...everyone except Draake.

"You have done well!" the giant told him. "Ckess was a skilled fighter. Come with me."

Draake led Ron down a short, wear-polished path to a modest domed structure that appeared completely foreign to the barren world on which it rested. It was shiny metal, like polished stainless steel, and was perfectly round. Its width was easily thirty feet across and it stood almost twenty feet high, with no outward signs of ownership of just who'd built or provided it.

Draake stopped at the apparent entrance; it being marked by a distinct alteration in the outer surface which formed a large oval. It was big enough so that even Draake might enter without hindrance.

"This is a med-station. It is autonomous. It will repair your damage to a point that you can work. There are no weapons in there and you cannot escape, so don't waste your time in the attempt. When it is finished, you will report to the mine. Understand?"

"Yes."

"You have twenty borts!"

Draake then turned and followed the same path back to the hole in the ground where the others had gone.

### Chapter Two

### What Happened?

On Rauld:

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Cache Kuar screamed as she watched her only link to Ron disintegrate in a white-hot burst of uncontained plasma energy, shown on her viewer as a sensor interpretation of the event.

Her face was a mask of horror, of worry, of utter helplessness, and of nearly unfathomable anger.

"You dragen cowards!" she ranted in fury, slamming her small fists down on the counter. "RON!" she screamed again.

In the span of barely a few borts, her world had collapsed around her. All the hopes and plans she'd made over the past several santaris, since before he'd left for Earth in fact, had been unceremoniously ripped from her in mere moments. Some alien race had broken her personally devised safety protocols, hijacked her transport signal, taken her lover...her child's father...and then blown up the only relay station connecting them.

"Why...Guardian above us...why?" she whispered as she slumped into a chair, her entire body vibrating from her adrenal rush. "How could this have happened?" she murmured...her mind spinning at what it all meant. "How could this have happened?"

She was shocked, bewildered, and heartbroken, and so she quickly drifted into a state of incoherent despair.

Aanlis, on the other hand, the most gifted communications analyst on Rauld, went immediately to work to find out the answer to that very question.

Half a billot later, Aanlis finally broke Cache's mournful ramblings with news.

"I have reestablished communications with the _Darlile_!" she announced triumphantly. The interstellar com-system of the ship could still send information the old-fashioned way, although without the immense boost from the Starflex relay station, there was some delay in the signal. "It is safe and still under power...headed home."

"Send it after them!" she suddenly shouted, whirling around to her friend and colleague. "Order the...never mind! I'll do it!"

Cache's fingers danced hurriedly across a flat keyboard that was covered in Raulden symbols and gradients. She would have to perform that duty anyway, because no one could order the _Darlile_ to do anything without her express authorization...or Ron's.

"There!" she growled with a deep, gritty sound...one Aanlis had never heard in the astonishingly docile environment of Gammone, on the planet Rauld. It frightened her.

"What did you do?" she asked sheepishly.

Cache looked around at her with fire and contempt clearly in her glaring expression. "The _Darlile_ will hunt them down. She will track them to the ends of the galaxy if need be...and then she will destroy them!"

She said it with a voice laced with unfettered hate and wanton revenge.

"Cache!" Aanlis whispered cautiously, somewhat afraid of her friend's next response. "You cannot!"

"Why not?" she demanded in a tone previously reserved for those who had earned her loathing.

She and Ron had just completed the routing of an alien race bent on the destruction of the people of Earth for the sake of stripping the planet of its natural resources. They had done what was necessary...much of it being savage and brutal. She was in no mood now to show compassion like her Raulden brethren. However, looking into the eyes of her docile, naïve friend, she suddenly felt the overwhelming need to explain.

"You do not know the ways of some of the aliens out there, Aanlis. They are vile and ruthless, and I..."

"No, no, no, Cache. I do not question your need to defend Ron, or yourself, or this planet. It is just that these beings are the only ones who might help us find him. If you kill them..."

Cache's fingers curled around until her nails bit deeply into her palms. Aanlis was absolutely correct. This was a bad idea. Her anger had overrun her rational tendencies and steadfast logic.

"Yes, yes, of course," Cache acknowledged immediately, feeling a sudden reddening in her face, the result of that embarrassing moment of rash foolishness. Her brain quickly spooled back down from the spike of fury she'd felt and settled into a more productive track. "I can adjust my orders."

She quickly rescinded her kill order and modified the ship's objective.

"All right. The _Darlile_ will track them, disable them, and then wait for my arrival."

"Arrival? To where?"

"Wherever the ship stops. I will utilize the ship's onboard transporter equipment to board her from here. Prepare to deploy the backup transporter relay station!"

"I cannot. It is not ready."

"What? Why not? I thought we kept an operational spare at all times?"

"We do, but when those beings broke into the last one, the Central computer immediately began recalibrating the new one to fight off any further attack. However, since we are still analyzing what actually happened, it may take a while."

"How long?"

"Unknown. Whatever they used against the _Darlile_ earlier, and against the station just now, we have been unable to identify. Somehow they have found a way through our shielding. If we send out another station vulnerable to their technology, it is possible that they might use it to back-track into our own system and infiltrate Rauld's computers. That would leave us..."

"Completely at their mercy!" Cache finished Aanlis's thought with a heavy sigh and another fist slamming down on the work station.

Aanlis raised a concerned eyebrow at Cache's demonstrative release of pent up anxiety.

Cache caught the look and waved her off. "Forgive me, Aanlis, please. I have spent too much time around primitives lately."

She then dropped into her seat again dejectedly, her head in her hands. "Oh, Ron, my love! I have failed you again!" she said as tears spattered against the control panel.

Aanlis ignored her grieving partner and began working on the strange technology the aliens had used.

"Moralis," she spoke calmly into the air, "would you please summon the team and send them here?"

"Of course," was the only reply. It came from nowhere, and everywhere. It was the voice of the neural network of the Central Computer. Aanlis called it by a name she liked to use...even though it had no formal Raulden title.

Aanlis was an extremely gifted analyst for that type of project, as were the ten Rauldens who arrived soon after the call. They all assisted the Central Computer in breaking down the code the aliens had used and searching each string of data for clues to the their technology.

For the next few billots, Cache joined in, but even as brilliant as she was, she was quickly overwhelmed by the sheer speed the true experts (Aanlis and her cohorts) were flying through the data, so she diverted her energy to a new goal.

She decided to search for the mystery aliens through the few known physical facts they had...the space-crafts' design and the type of scanning beam they'd used.

By sifting through the accumulated information the Rauldens had stolen from the Kreete over the preceding few cycles, she eliminated two thirds of the surrounding galaxy. That was still a daunting amount of area to cover, but it was something, and she felt at least some relief that she'd made progress by the time the _Darlile_ had returned confirmation of her orders. It was now a five billot delay that would soon be getting longer because the ship was headed away from Rauld again, streaking to the coordinates of the previous relay buoy.

When she'd reached a dead end, not having enough information to carry forward with any real confidence, Cache began fumbling around the com station, trying to keep busy without interrupting Aanlis's concentration...which she failed to do.

"Why do you not go and be with your daughter, Cache," Aanlis finally suggested. "I will contact you as soon as we find something. I promise."

Cache started to argue, but she could see the concern on Aanlis's face and knew she was only slowing the work, so she nodded reluctantly.

On Parkanick:

The instant Ron stepped into the med station, the softly glowing light inside jumped to a higher setting, almost too bright, causing the glands in his eyes to darken slightly.

"Humanoid!" announced a strange, alien voice. "Biped...single heart...single brain."

Ron glanced about the interior and noted several things. First was the absolute cleanliness of the space. Second was that the walls were segmented into forty-nine green sections with a foot-wide band of light separating each of them from floor to ceiling. Those bands flooded the station with bright white illumination. Third was there were no discernable pieces of equipment anywhere within sight. Fourth was that the interior was at least five feet smaller in diameter than the exterior. Lastly, the floor was a perfect mirror.

His assessment took barely a lita, and then things began to change. One segment of the wall broke free and translated inward, its base sliding toward the center while it lifted off the floor with a single support pole pushing it up. The upper portion slid down the wall until both ends were perfectly horizontal. It looked like it was made of emerald slate.

"Disrobe and lie down!" ordered an odd voice, seemingly out of thin air. Ron did as he was instructed, finding the slab of rock-like material to be unusually warm...at least as warm as his skin. Once prone, he watched with deep interest as the medical unit continued its metamorphosis.

The smooth walls directly adjacent to the platform suddenly erupted in a flurry of movement while the others remained stationary.

Six half-moon-shaped, hovering robots drifted swiftly out of their docking stations and took up positions (flat sides downward) two inches above Ron...one at each thigh, one for each arm, one at his head, and one over his chest. Once set, those basketball-sized drones immediately proceeded in a synchronized survey of his torso and extremities.

The Mednauts were efficient and thorough, leaving no part of him uninspected. After a complete body scan, the units returned to their beginning positions, at which time they each unexpectedly deployed webbed restraints into the table which pinned Ron down with remarkable power. Next, a new smaller scanning probe, about the size of a softball, floated slowly over his body.

Ron didn't care for this part in the least. The feeling of helplessness was more than a little unnerving, especially in this foreign environment, but his attempts at escape were less than hopeful...futile in fact. He was well secured.

The probe focused on the area with the long gash, apparently acting as a coordinator, directing another mechanical device...one which reminded Ron of a large jellyfish...to clean the open wound with its short tentacles. There were no pain-killing sprays or shots administered, so Ron had to simply endure the process as it came.

The mednaut's leading set of four arms scrubbed and swabbed while the next row pressed the flesh back together, and the trailing group of highly dexterous limbs applied some type of adhesive that dried instantly to a flexible, durable coating. It then repeated the process on his left thigh, where Ckess had grazed him with the blade deep enough to warrant the aid. Next it moved to his left hand...it having a broken phalange. A warm, vibrating massage of the area felt good to Ron while he wondered about what it was actually doing. A couple of borts later, the jellyfish mednaut released him and returned to its dock. When its door closed, all restraints jumped free of Ron and the units glided noiselessly back to their walled compartments.

Closure of his most grievous wounds and repair of the hand he required to perform work were all that received attention. The other non-life-threatening injuries...oozing scrapes, deep bruises, and shallow gashes...received no attention at all.

The table began sliding back to its station without one more word to Ron, so he took the initiative to regain his feet and get dressed.

That was when he found his Raulden clothing was gone, replaced by a similar garb that all the other inmates wore. It was a one-piece, sleeveless coverall that had no insignias or tags whatsoever, so his jailers' anonymity remained intact. Ron sighed once deeply, but donned his clothing all the same. He found it to be thick and sturdy material that left him with good mobility. There were no boots with the uniform, so just as everyone else, he was barefoot.

When all the high-tech machinery was stowed away, the door opened automatically and Ron lumbered stiffly through it feeling every powerful blow he'd taken from Ckess.

Out into the stinking, burning air he went, his eyes taking in all the empty scenery that there was, which wasn't much. The sky was dirty orange-brown in color and looked as unappealing as it smelled. The stony, desolate ground held no plant life or water, and in fact it looked like it had been artificially leveled for a distance of about one-quarter hoz around the mine's single entry point.

There were no watch towers, no guards, no fences, and no walls.

"What kind of prison is thi..." his comment died in his throat when his eyes focused on the horizon.

Ron then pivoted around in place in a near stupor, having just realized that the land he stood on was incased in an enormous dome! He stared and blinked at it a few moments, and his mind desperately wanted to explore that incredible oddity, but he didn't have the time to go all the way out to investigate just then.

With no clear way to escape, and only the most rudimentary notion of what went on at this facility, Ron chose not to begin his new life in complete contradiction to the established authority's rules. He decided to rejoin the group. They would be able to clue him in on the strange world where he now found himself trapped.

Ron strode back up the well-worn path...one that looked as if countless booted feet had tread over it for many cycles...and headed for the solitary entrance to the mine. He stopped only once, when he stood beside the single man-made device in the entire area...other than the med-station. It was roughly cylindrical, about the size of a small car, and was the color of a dark pearl. He gave it a shove and noted it was either affixed solidly to the ground or extremely heavy because it didn't budge a bit and it held seven small focal dishes on one side.

The giant alien with the rope had stood beside it when Ron first arrived, and so he assumed it was the device that had opened the portal to this place. It was clearly not Raulden...their device being much sleeker and only a third the size...but it was impressive in the mere fact that they had somehow bypassed the Raulden safeguards and essentially hijacked their incredibly sophisticated transporter.

"But why?" Ron thought. "If it were some bounty-hunters who'd tricked me, wouldn't they have delivered me to a Kreete facility...or killed me?"

His speculation would have to wait though, because he was out of time, and so he pointed himself back in the direction of the mine's entrance and moved away. He didn't even bother trying to figure out how the transporter unit worked because it was obvious that he wouldn't have been left alone with it if there was any possibility of him using it to escape.

The ingress pathway to whatever mining operation lay beneath the surface was nothing more than a large hole in the ground (about fifteen feet in diameter) that had been bored into the planet by what appeared to have been a plasma drill. There was no door at all, no mound of dirt and debris, and no sign or marking of any kind denoting the facility's designation.

Ron found the entire place extraordinarily odd...almost seeming to be intentionally baffling...and would love to have been able to investigate it further, but again, he had little time to contemplate such things so he merely continued onward toward his unknown fate.

The only route was perfectly straight and angled at approximately six degrees of slope, Ron guessed, so it was easy to follow even when the darkness fell all around him.

He advanced slowly, allowing his eyes time to adjust, and found he could see quite well even after the sunlight had lost its influence. That was possible because the ramp was lit on both sides by luminaries like he'd seen on other worlds...phosphorescent stones set into the walls.

Less than a hundred feet into the hole, Ron reached the end of the entry tunnel. At that point he stepped into a large round room that had apparently been cut out by the same extremely precise machine, excavating what appeared to be solid, unbroken rock to a diameter of twenty-eight peors (yards). The walls were vertical for nearly twelve feet, where the ceiling was formed into a perfectly arched, yet very shallow dome, which peaked at only about twenty feet. Those walls were as smooth as poured concrete too, with no cracks or breaks of any kind in their surface other than the lights.

The architects had kept a flat base for the floor, but time and use had dished out a slight trough into that surface that literally pointed the way for Ron.

That expansive room turned out to be nothing more than a congregation area, or foyer, that accommodated a set of three tubular elevators. Two were large and one was small. The doors to them had been clear at one time, but were now heavily scratched and etched by cycles of use, leaving them quite fogged.

All Ron could see in the two larger ones were empty shafts...the lifts being in service down below, he assumed. The elevators' shafts were round, approximately ten feet in diameter, and they had no obvious means of operation.

At the entrance of the smaller one however, he saw the platform setting level with the rock he was standing on. It seemed evident that it was built for a single individual (not for someone as large as Draake though, it being only four feet across) so he approached it.

Ron looked about for instructions but found none, so he stepped up to it, guessing it might be as automated as the med station. He wasn't disappointed. The door opened silently upon his approach and he entered cautiously, resuming his search for some directions. Nothing was written inside either. He paused there for a few litas before...

"What level?" asked a male voice.

Ron had no idea, so he tried a different tact. Much of the technology he'd seen on Rauld responded to different types of instructions.

"Take me to Draake Tarbold."

The door whisked into position immediately and the cramp little device dropped out from under him in a flash.

Ron inhaled sharply, surprised at the incredible rate of his descent. It was at least equivalent to free-fall since he couldn't feel any pressure from the floor whatsoever, so he expected the drop to stop fairly quickly...but it didn't.

When he could breathe again, he began to count the litas going by.

He passed lighted levels twenty times during his descent, but much too fast to make out what was happening on them. At one hundred and sixty four litas, the ride began to slow as brakes kicked in and returned gravitational inputs to his legs.

Once he felt firmness beneath him though, it kept steadily climbing far past what he was expecting, and the weight finally spiked up dramatically when the small transport came to a complete stop, forcing him to struggle for his balance.

Ron nearly collapsed to the floor of the elevator because of the pressure being generated by the moon's gravitational pull. This close to the center of the planet diminished the centripetal force of the globe's rotation to the point that it increased his weight by nearly twenty percent!

The door opened a few moments later and Ron staggered out into a dimly lit cavern. The air was laced with dust from the non-stop operations in the bowels of the world, yet it retained the acidic quality he'd noticed on the surface...only here it was much stronger.

"This way!" shouted Draake, motioning at Ron to join him at the entrance to a black pit that angled down from the main shaft. "You will work with them."

Ron followed his direction and joined five other humans in a narrow crevice that dove off down and away from where they stood.

"They will show you what to do," Draake said as he walked away. "And remember this! No fighting in the mine! Or else!"

Ron turned to the fellow nearest him...a man whose skin was as dark as the tunnel. "Or else, what?"

The man snickered quickly...nervously. "Or else you have to fight him!"

Into the darkness they plunged.

So began Ron's life as a slave of the Kreete Triad...or so it seemed.

### Chapter Three

### The Crew

"What's your name?" Ron asked his ebony guide. He was easily seven feet tall, lean, broad across the shoulders, and well-muscled...and the chocolate brown tuft on his head looked more like fur than human hair.

"I've been called many things," the man said over his shoulder without turning around. "My true name is Dexratlige Marrsoman Ruubin. Most people call me Dex. Here though, Draake calls me Orty."

Ron's translator chip converted that into the literal translation of "night".

They continued deeper into the tunnel, and Ron made his way more by following the sound of Dex's footfalls than by sight.

The light seemed totally gone at first, but after a few litas Ron discovered that there was some slight luminescence radiating from the surrounding walls. It was a much weaker form of the material from the top-most tunnel and he was certain the Rauldens used that same element inside their complex, just a much more refined variety.

He followed Dex and three others for over a hoz, passing fifty side-shooting tunnels that had already been played out for the ore they sought. They were simply dark, empty vanes in what seemed like an endless system of branches. Finally though, they reached an area that was more open and lit from dozens of lights.

"I gotta go help with the cutter," Dex told Ron. "Stay with that guy over there...Fraidze. He'll show you what to do."

Ron nodded but didn't move just yet, interested in what was going on where Dex was headed.

There were more than twenty men laboring in that location. Most were scooping up remnants of rock debris left over from where the digger had bored its way through the hard rock. The device appeared as if it were straight out of the nineteenth century. It was totally mechanical with no motors, electric, internal combustion, steam powered...nothing. Instead, seven seats were placed along its length, behind the gear drives of the actual cutter. They were all in a straight line and each was situated so that the person in the seat could grasp a rod that protruded directly in front of them. Ron saw that the rod was attached to an eccentric wheel; and that to a long shaft. It was a giant, thirty five foot long piston! From the view he had, he surmised that the piston's movement back and forth spun a large flywheel, at least six feet in diameter and three feet thick. The inertia of that wheel was what drove the cutting edges of the borer.

A couple of the men were performing some type of maintenance on the borer, and apparently it wasn't going very well because they were ranting nonstop expletives at the uncooperative machine.

"What are we mining?" Ron asked the guy Dex had pointed out to him.

The fellow was a large man, as everyone there seemed to be...possibly six-foot-eight, Ron guessed...and wore his sandy-blonde hair wild and tangled as if he'd spent the last six santaris trapped on a deserted island. His arms had as much girth as Ron's thighs, and the sleeves of his uniform were torn off from the strain of trying to cover his huge, rounded shoulders. His jaw was as square as an anvil, but his pale green eyes looked young and full of energy. Ron immediately got the impression that he was as strong as an ox, but easy going.

"It's called mardiline #5," he said in a very deep voice. "It's one of seven base ingredients for septithonian...an alloy used to build super-light, super-strong, disruptor-resistant armor sheeting."

"What's the sheeting used for?"

"I don't know really. To protect something or someone, I guess."

"My name's Ron..."

"It won't matter what your name is," Fraidze interjected, "until Draake tells us what it is."

Ron felt his face flush with anger. He didn't like anyone having that kind of power over him. It was insulting and humiliating. Inwardly he vowed to find some way to break that creature's hold over him.

"Don't even think about it!"

"What?" Ron asked, returning his thoughts to the present.

"I've seen that look before. I'll tell you this as a warning. You can't beat him! No human can. He can't be hurt."

"He's got plenty of scars that say otherwise."

"Yeah...and you know how he got'em? From fighting in the arena against foes that would slaughter twenty men without blinking. They say he even killed a Redalion Tracker with just a sword and shield! The Grays' agony wands don't even affect him!"

Ron was clearly impressed, and nodded his understanding, reevaluating his position. "Thanks for the warning."

They'd reached their work area by then and Ron's guide paused.

"My name is Fraidze, by the way, but they call me Shinte here. It means something to the Benoits that I don't understand fully...but I don't ask."

"Benoits?"

"Yeah, the big guy who flattened you up topside. They come from an ultra-heavy world called Benoi, in the Palidini Sector. It's a Class eleven world."

"Eleven? I thought no humanoids can survive on planets above a 10.6?"

"Yeah, well that's what the gray-skins like to tell everyone...to keep any other worlds from joining them against the Triad. If someone were to advance those monsters, the Triad would get their asses kicked all the way back to Kreete."

"Really?"

"Yeah...sark man...the Grays don't stand a chance against those guys! It takes two Reapers in exo-suits or at least five Master Killers wearing the same, to bring a Benoi down...if they go sword to sword that is. They're at a huge disadvantage though...the Benoits...cause their race is barely up to the Industrial Age on their world. But if they weren't so valuable for these kinds of mining operations, the Kreete would probably have wiped them out...except maybe for sporting events. They're amazing in the ring!"

"So if the Benoits hate the Kreete like the rest of us, why are they working for them?"

"Because the Grays can hurt them in ways they can't fight. Draake and all his fellow ultra-heavies have families back on Benoi. Ships with disruptors...poison gas, fire, and a dozen other hellacious methods are used to keep the big men in line."

"Yeah, I guess there's always a way," Ron nodded, and then glanced around at the chore before him.

"Mole," Ron told Fraidze offhandedly.

"Huh?" Fraidze asked in bewilderment.

"Shinte means 'mole' in their language."

"Oh...really? Well, I suppose that's about right. I can see in the darker places where no one else can. I'm from Coriolus. It has really long nights that are very dark. Our sun is a bright yellow star but the planet rotates slowly and the atmosphere absorbs much of the starlight. We had to adapt to thrive in both environs."

Fraidze began gathering rocks he could carry, and loading them into heavy-duty carts set on iron rails, just like the old mines on Earth. Ron mimicked his actions and they continued to talk.

"Hey," Fraidze said suddenly, as a light went on in his mind, "If you've never heard of the Benoits, how can you speak their language?"

Ron didn't like exposing too much of his personal information so he thought quickly.

"I had to learn it for a job I was hired to do," he said nonchalantly. "I pick up languages pretty quickly. Anyway, that job fell through, so I never used it."

"A job, huh? What kind of work is it that you're into?"

Ron tried not to look too annoyed. "I'm what you'd call a repairman."

"Oh? For what?"

Ron shot him a sideways grin with an intense stare. "Whatever. I fix problems...you know...make them go away."

Fraidze felt a chill race up his spine as he gazed into Ron's glittering eyes.

"Guess your last job didn't go so well, huh? Since you ended up here, that its."

"Yeah. That's still a wonder I haven't figured out yet."

"And what was that freaky transport that dumped you here anyway? I ain't never seen anything like it...or even heard of it."

"I don't know for sure, but it opened up right inside my ship moving at point-two VL-1."

"Holy Creator! No way! How could that be possible?"

Ron merely shrugged and changed the subject.

"Why don't they just use Cnauts to clean this debris up? It would be much more affective and faster."

"They can't. The weird properties of the ore disrupt magnetic fields, and screws up all radio links and any type of central-based communications or controls of Cnauts."

"Really? So there's no surveillance down here?"

"Just the Benoits. But they're bad enough, I'd say."

They worked in silence for a long while, Ron's mind running at hyper-speed as his thoughts went to possibilities for escape. He couldn't help it. It was his nature.

"Is this all we do down here?" Ron finally asked.

"No...ha, ha, hah. No, this is just until you get acclimated to the pit. It takes a few days to adjust to the life at this level. If we shoved you into the real work on your first day, you'd be dead by quitting time. Because you're new though, I get this cushy duty...so thanks for that. You see, this is the best job there is for a guy with all his limbs! All we have to do is dig and move the ore.

"Now, if someone gets maimed real bad...something the med station up topside can't fix...you know, lose an arm or leg... they get the driver's duty until a replacement shows up...or they die from infection.

"No, after three or four work cycles, you'll be sent into the real dregs. Down there you're gonna really catch hell. The new guy always gets the worst jobs until he finds his ranking in the list.

"The list?"

"Yeah. We're all on a master list that Draake keeps. That way he can track our abilities...you know, how much we work, how strong we are, how good we fight, how much trouble we give him...that sort of thing. If you're at the bottom..." he shivered visibly, recalling some memory that was obviously unwanted, "man...take my word...you don't want to be at the bottom.

"They'll have you digging a new drain for the latrine, or clearing a clog from the recycler...something that'll really turn your stomach."

Ron didn't like the prospects of that at all.

"Where was Ckess ranked?"

"He was first human."

"I'll take his spot then," Ron announced without hesitation.

Fraidze looked at him surprisingly. Ron saw his face and asked, "Is something wrong with that?"

"Not as far as I'm concerned. Ckess always treated me with the utmost contempt, but others won't be so agreeable."

"We'll see!"

They moved rocks for the next six billots without more than five borts of rest given for a water break. It was grueling, backbreaking work, and Ron's beaten body protested sharply toward the end, but Draake made his rounds often and kept a close eye on him and Fraidze. He didn't let them slack off at all.

"If you want Ckess's ration, you have to do his work!" the big man growled at him once, when Ron looked like he was ready to collapse.

And Draake was no sloppy, overweight, lazy boss either. He did his share of moving ore too, grabbing boulders too heavy for Ron and Fraidze to lift together, and loading them onto the cart.

Even the mechanics working on the boring machine gave their share of sweat to the team. Their duties were equally strenuous and often hazardous...having to do much of it while the machine ground its way forward through the moon's mantle.

When the shift was finally over, Draake called a halt to the toil and sent everyone out to the main line. They all filed onto the two large elevators with drooping shoulders and sleep heavy in their eyes, and then up they went.

Ron guessed they went nearly to the surface before the lift stopped and emptied them out onto the sleeping-quarters level. It was a large cavern cut approximately two hundred feet deep and seventy five feet across, with a ceiling nearly thirty feet above. Along the edges of both sides were arranged an equal number of barred cages of differing sizes. Ron immediately noticed that those sizes alternated as well, with no two "like" cells joining. He wondered about that while he took in the rest of the space.

At the far end of the artificial cave was a wide waterfall that somehow contained its flow into a shallow pool that did not fill up or overflow...with no sign of where the water came from or went to. The cavern was lit by the same glowing rocks he'd grown accustomed to, but that was about it. There was nothing else in the flat, dim area.

While Ron looked around, the entire group headed for the never-ending shower where each rinsed off as they could, enjoying the refreshing feeling of the cool fluid. Most of the men even stripped and washed out the grit from their clothes. Ron followed their example when there was room and felt amazingly refreshed afterward, quickly adjusting to this new life. After all, it was better than his last time in captivity.

When that was done, Ron milled about to see what was next, and it was quickly made clear. At the sound of a deep, resonating tone, a pulsating light began a countdown and every barred door opened in unison. The workers all made a bee-line for the rows of cages.

Each of those compartments was somewhat customized for the species it held, Ron noted. The humans all had mats on the floors, a basin mounted on the wall, and a crude latrine. Between every cage was a foot-thick wall of stone with no breaks in its surface, so one could not see his neighbor once inside. The cells each had a door made of what appeared to be iron bar mesh. The woven material was as thick as Ron's thumb on the human cells and as thick as his wrist on those that housed the Benoits.

"You are there!" was all Draake told Ron before strolling off to his own space.

Ron was next to a different Benoi, but the fellow didn't even acknowledge his presence, choosing to ignore him totally...but whether out of contempt or apathy, he didn't know.

When the speed of the flashes changed to a single, slowly throbbing strobe, the cell doors all closed and locked with a resounding metal clang. It was all very calm and orderly, which surprised Ron a good bit, and made him question the oddity of it all.

"It's as if they're all here willingly," he thought. "There's no sign of anger or challenge in any of them."

A few moments later, when a noise at the back of the cell drew his attention, he instinctively dropped into a crouch and spun about to search out the cause. There was no obvious sign of danger however, so his eyes swept the rocky surface quickly, spotting a well-crafted portal about the size and shape of a typical dresser drawer. He approached with caution and examined it more closely before sliding it open an inch or two. The door revealed an inner compartment that held a small pale of water and a large platter of food...with utensils!

Once more he found it extremely odd that they were given such good treatment, but his stomach pushed through his wariness, tossing all caution aside as he dove into the meal with gusto. It was huge...more than enough for someone Ron's size. The central mass was a heaping stack of some kind of unidentifiable meat, but it was well-cooked and delicious. There was also a type of brown rice with gravy, some corn, half a loaf of bread, and a bowl of chopped vegetables!

"What kind of prison is this?" he wondered as he practically inhaled the meal. His eyes scanned the place again while he ate, but there were no discernable cameras, or listening devices he could make out.

When finished, Ron fingered the metal tools slyly, wondering if a weapon might come in handy.

"If it were that easy to get a weapon though," he thought, "why had Ckess used a sharpened rock to attack me?"

He listened carefully and heard everyone else replace the plate, knife, and two pronged fork back into their alcove, just like they were at a cafeteria.

"What the hell?" he wondered.

The entire ordeal seemed too submissive...too rehearsed. Ron hesitated.

"If you are thinking of taking a weapon...do not!" the huge being quartered next to Ron said in a voice so gravelly, it was nearly unintelligible.

He was positioned at the end of the wall separating them, which surprised Ron quite a bit since he hadn't heard the giant move to that location. Those Benoits were definitely worth watching, Ron decided. He got the distinct feeling they were a species with exceptional abilities.

"If anything is missing when the food tray returns, the cell is immediately sealed and poisoned."

He then turned and shuffled back to his mat to lie down.

Ron scanned the cell again quickly. He couldn't see any signs of a way to physically seal the room, but he knew that anyone who could hijack the Starflex Transporter from the Rauldens could manage that relatively simple feat. The technology he'd scene in Gammone had demonstrated the ability to create this entire cavern domicile from nothing at all. They could all be actually sitting in a warehouse for all he knew. Nothing could be taken at face value.

He decided not to be in too much of a rush to escape, so he did as he was told.

"Thanks for the heads-up!" he called to his neighbor. The fellow made no reply, so he moved on.

There was no bed, but a thin, soft mat and a blanket lay toward the back of the eight foot square floor. He tested both and found them quite nice, once more disturbingly surprised at the relative luxury of the accommodations, but coming up with a plausible reason for it escaped him.

He turned to the side of the cell opposite the Benoi, where he could hear one of the bat-eared men just getting comfortable for the night. A few steps put him at the edge of the iron mesh where he opened his mouth to start a conversation with the fellow. He could go for a few answers right about then, but the scene of the open cavern instantly vanished. Some type of barrier formed between the mesh bars which was translucent, yet diffused enough to keep him from seeing out. Ron tried to yell through it, but had no luck...finally understanding that it was a sound deadening field as well as sight prohibitive. He was left utterly alone.

"An excellent method of stopping the collaboration of inmates," he thought as he too stripped and lay down, pulling the blanket over him.

He'd realized back in the med station that none of his friends could possibly know where he was, so no one would be coming to his rescue. That was so obvious that he didn't even waste a lita hoping for that. Too, he took it for granted that he was likely on his own with his escape planning since the other inmates all seemed so resolved to their current predicament...and he wasn't about to get a "Miranda Rights" style phone call to Rauld for help.

That was alright for the time being though since he was in no apparent "real" danger where he was.

He quickly concluded that he would just have to be patient and evolve a plan. There were plenty of men imprisoned with him, and sooner or later he would find someone who could answer his questions.

Ron had always been the pragmatic sort, able to push the non-pertinent aspects out of his mind, so that is what he did then. His thoughts drifted quickly to his last vision of Cache Kuar, and of his wife, Angela. He of course knew now that they had not been real, but they were clear and vivid in his mind. He also recalled the goddess-woman, Josylinia Gitove...the one who'd offered to make a life with him...to be his new wife. She was anxiously awaiting his return, and his answer. She wanted a family with him...to give him children and a home...a place of solace and escape from the perilous mission he and Cache had begun.

They would all have to wait. For how long, he had no idea. Right now however, his body needed rest, so he put the mental pictures away...all except one. She made him smile like none of the others. There was no worry attached to his memory of her. She was sweet, and innocent, and happy, and beautiful. Sheyah!

"Sheyah is my daughter!" Ron's mind reaffirmed.

He still felt amazed just thinking about that fact. It had only been a few short billots since he'd found out the truth of her parentage before he was taken, and now it seemed like he should have known all along. All the little hints Cache had given. All the obvious references she'd made to her child's parentage had blown right by him because of his own distraction...no, distraction was the wrong word...his totally overwhelming desire for Josy. Josylinia had saved his life. She'd coaxed him back from the brink of madness to return (almost) to a civilized man. She loved him freely, with no strings binding him to her other than those he chose to tie through his own heart. She was the most beautiful woman he could ever even imagine, and she was consumed with her love for him. She was pure and untainted, living only with his happiness in her thoughts.

He loved her completely...but so did he love Cache.

His Earth wife, Angela, also...but she was an unmanageable love now. He could never return to his old life on Earth. His transformation into the being he currently was had ruined any hope of that.

It was all very complicated and convoluted, one relationship overlapping the feelings of the other to the point it made Ron's head throb.

But Sheyah was who he thought about now, and that eased his mind. His fingers longed to hold her again, and he yearned to watch her innocent expressions while she probed his face with her boundless curiosity. He closed his eyes with the image of her gazing at him and smiling.

A few good, deep breaths found him calm and at peace.

He was out in moments.

### Chapter Four

### A New Life

Ron awakened to the sound of a sharp chirp. He had absolutely no idea how long he'd slept, but he knew he could have used more.

His bleary eyes glanced about and reminded him of the predicament he was in. The mesh-barred door was clear again, and he could hear the others rustling about in their own cells too. The meal doors began sliding aside and he made out the sounds of plates and cups dragging from their berths, so he did the same.

He moved quickly, not knowing what kind of timeframe he'd be given for each task, and was soon full again. He replaced everything as he'd been instructed, and began stretching his stiff body.

Ten borts later, the cell doors opened and out he went, searching for the one person who he'd spoken at length with on the previous day...Fraidze.

Ron found him talking with Dex and another fellow, so he approached. Fraidze saw him coming and grinned.

"Here's the new guy, fellas," he said as Ron grew near. "Ron, this is Bart...dubbed 'Norce' by the 'Mighty one', and you already know Orty...I mean Dex...right?"

Ron held out his hand to Bart. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Bart."

The man stared at his hand like it was some alien appendage unfit to touch. He stood a few inches taller than Ron and appeared stern and serious. His piercing blue eyes almost glowed in the artificial light of the cavern, especially set against hair as black as Ron's, and he had a thick layer of muscle as well...but not quite to the extent of Fraidze.

Ron quickly recalled his lesson from Roelantish on Caron and withdrew it. Many societies saw strangers as enemies first and were not open to physical contact at such greetings.

"I'm Ron Allison, and 'Norce' means hard-head...stubborn." Then he turned to Fraidze. "I was wondering if you could..."

"Itsu!" roared Draake Tarbold, just then, drawing all the men's attention. Ron looked too, and instantly saw that the giant warrior was staring straight at him. "Itsu...you stay with Shinte and Orty today!"

With that brief order, he went past them and headed to the elevator. Ron stood stone-still, fuming at the insult. Fraidze saw his expression immediately.

"What'd he call you?"

"Itsu," in their language, means 'tiny one'."

The three men couldn't suppress a snicker at that, but Ron's angry glare quelled their mirth immediately. They all grew quiet then and fell in line with the others heading to the lifts.

Ron forced himself to calm down swiftly, not wanting a silly thing like pride to push him into some rash move before he could think it through. He joined the others on the large elevator and down they went for another day's arduous work.

Over the following week Ron suffered through his transition period well enough and was soon growing used to the heat, the stress, and the smell of his new life. He got along well with his comrades by carrying his share of the work as one of the team, and no one ever mentioned missing his predecessor. One morning he inquired about how often anyone went up to the surface.

"Whenever they get hurt bad enough to need the med station," Dex replied. "Otherwise, what's the use?"

"I don't know. Let me think. Oh, yeah! To see the sunlight?"

"You'll see it often enough...trust me. You'll begin to hate 'topside'."

The very next day, the end of the shift came a billot early, and everyone knew what it meant...except Ron.

"Congratulations, Ron," Fraidze told him with a powerful slap on the back, "it looks like you get that outing you've been hoping for."

"Why? What do you mean?"

Fraidze didn't look very thrilled about the prospect...even worried...and didn't answer.

"It means," Dex said as they moved toward the lift, "you get your peek at the sun today, my friend.

"You see, once a week, if we're not too far behind on the schedule, Draake takes us all up top for a little training seminar."

"Yeah?" Ron asked with building trepidation. "What kind of 'seminar'?"

"The painful kind," Bart mumbled as they gathered at the elevators.

Immediately after the doors to the lifts opened, they all felt the change, and most of them cringed visibly. The rise in temperature was their first indication that they were near the surface. The intense heat from the domed enclosure was stifling compared with the coolness of the living quarters. They filed out quietly and headed for the entrance.

When they were all spread out on the surface, Draake and his Benoi brethren went along the line and paired up the men, ordering them to face one another.

Ron got partnered with Bart. While each man situated himself, Ron saw Bart breathing deeply...his eyes growing hard and intense...and so he immediately understood the drill.

"Everyone make ready!" Draake bellowed. "Fight!"

Bart charged Ron and threw punches and kicks as if it were a cage-match in the Ultimate Fighter competition. Ron ramped up his readiness as quickly as he could and countered the salvo of blows well enough to keep from going down, but when he'd taken enough, he mounted his own offensive.

While Bart was close in and pummeling Ron's arms and shoulders, Ron leaped straight up, bringing his left knee into a collision course with Bart's jaw that lifted him off his feet and sent him sailing flat onto his back.

When Ron landed, he was astride Bart's dazed form with his right arm pulled back. Bart flailed weakly, far too dazed to defend the incoming blow, but it did not fall. Ron reigned in his battle urge and stepped aside, allowing Bart time to recover.

He helped Bart to his feet and immediately began instructing him on exactly how to avoid such a move in the future. And for the remaining time out on the hot, rocky surface, he schooled Bart in the art of hand-to-hand combat. It reminded him of the gladiator training camp back in Gardilane, and soon took on the feel of it as well.

Bart was no brash young fool either. He was very eager and attentive. Ron might be a few inches shorter, but he could tell that little man was an absolute fiend when it came to fighting.

Draake and his fellows stood off to the side, just watching. When the time was up, they spoke together quietly for a few moments and then herded the men back into the mine's entrance and to the sleeping level.

It was the same work routine day after day for another week, until one morning when a new chime sounded right after breakfast. Everyone froze in their tracks. The conversations that had been going on all stopped. Many furtive glances shot around the room, and the few smiling faces turned solemn and distraught.

"What's that mean?" Ron asked Fraidze.

He just pointed upward and gritted his teeth. "New guy!"

"Let's go," Draake growled, waving his hand at the men as if calling them into a huddle.

The entire group...seven separate gangs...hurtled upward to meet a newcomer to Parkanick. They each bristled and no one talked while the elevator climbed and decelerated to a stop at the surface access antechamber. Then the entire mass of differing individuals slowly moved out and up the ramp.

Ron was more towards the back of the throng, studying every foot of the tunnels as he strolled along, looking totally at peace and seemingly unconcerned about what might be awaiting them.

"How can you be so calm, Ron," Bart asked him. He was clearly vibrating from anxiety. "You might be walking to your death, ya-know?"

Ron kept right on cataloguing the route without hesitation or distraction. "That's highly doubtful," he replied. "But if it is so, worrying about it ahead of time will only lengthen and accentuate the unpleasant process."

Fraidze was as keyed up as Bart and they both exchanged glances of incredulity at their new friend.

"What are you doing anyway," Fraidze asked.

"Looking for a way out of this place."

Bart and Fraidze suddenly stopped and grabbed his arms, their heads swiveling around to see if anyone else had heard.

"Are you insane? You trying to get us all killed? There's only one way out of Parkanick, and that's in a carrion bag!"

"Man, don't even whisper that you're planning something. Draake will beat you to death himself. You know that if you even attempt it, the rest of us are all dead?"

"What?" Ron asked, completely blind-sided. "No. No, I didn't. But why wou..."

"Why would they ice us all? To make sure no one attempts it! Shadze, Ron! They can replace any of us in a couple of billots! Don't you get it? That's what these little trips to the surface are all about. They're lessons in the way things are. We're each expendable!"

"I'm sorry, Bart...Fraidze. Of course I wouldn't risk anyone else's life without they're consent. I just had no idea."

"Well, now you do...so keep anymore thoughts like that to yourself!"

They were clearly angry and afraid.

Ron and his pals then hurried to rejoin the crowd. That bit of news dampened his clear-cut, simple goal, but he didn't fully give up his inspection. He just did so more discreetly. He had absolutely no intention of staying a slave for the rest of his life.

"So how often does a new recruit show up?" Ron asked when he finally felt the sunshine press its kiss of heat onto his skin.

"Usually every seven days or so. It's been a lot longer since you arrived, but that's not the norm."

"What triggers the need?"

"According to the general word, it's just to keep us on our toes...you know...to keep us from getting too comfortable. They don't want us to get lazy."

"Yeah. I guess having to stay sharp enough to survive these matches would tend to do that," Ron conceded.

They were out of the tunnel entrance by then and working their way toward the mass of assembled individuals. Someone from up ahead shouted back; "Humanoid!"

"Well, I hope you're up for a fight," Fraidze said, turning and looking straight at Ron.

"Why? What do you mean...some 'new guy' initiation? I have to face the first new challenger?"

"No...nothing like that. It's just that...well...you're kinda the smallest guy here."

That fact hadn't been lost on Ron...especially after Draake dubbed him "tiny one", so he nodded at their assessment without feeling slighted.

They filtered through the ring of workers until they stood in front, beside all the other human men. Draake was already explaining the rules of Parkanick to the foreigner.

The newcomer was a large fellow, well-muscled and lean, with dozens of scars showing on his bare arms, legs, and face. He was dressed in armor that covered his chest, shoulders, waist, and thighs, as if he'd just been plucked from a Caronian gladiator arena. He carried a three-pronged spear (roughly resembling a trident) in his left hand, and a shield was strapped to his right forearm. He also sported metal shin guards.

Ron stood relaxed and took in the reaction of the group. They had all begun working themselves up into the fight mode as Draake growled away with his unwelcoming speech.

"Holy sart, man," Dex was saying to Bart. "The guy's fully armed! This is chinch dung! Who the shadze is going to be able to beat him?"

There was a nervous vibration sweeping through the ring of waiting men, but they each hid any fear they felt pretty well.

Finally, Draake swept his hand across the watching men and said, "Choose!"

The new man scoured every face in the group patiently, seeking signs of weakness he might exploit. But when he looked into Ron's eyes...as Ron stood before him calmly with his arms folded across his chest...the fellow recognized a look he was totally unaccustomed to seeing. It was apathy.

He furrowed his brow in confusion as he continued with his inspection, but then returned to Ron at the end. "Him!"

Ron merely unfolded his arms and stepped out into the open area of the circle the men had formed. He didn't protest the inequality of the situation; the lack of a weapon, or the disparity of the man's armor. He just stretched out his shoulders and got into position.

The warrior lowered to a crouch and attacked in a jerking, circling motion, the long spear jabbing at Ron every few litas to gauge his reaction time. Ron barely kept himself clear of that deadly tool by always being just a hair quicker than the thrust, but he stayed on the defensive...as well he should according to everyone else's thoughts.

That three bladed weapon was a hideous tool of war. Its wide spearhead was constructed in such a way that a cutting edge lay all along its perimeter, so that no one could grasp it and wrestle it away from its wielder. The center blade was a few inches longer than the outer ones, and was double-edged...used for spearing as well as sweeping blows. Also, there was a wrist strap that was adjustable to the owner's preference of balance. That also prevented its operator from losing his grasp of it if his hand grew tired or sweaty.

The fellow's shield was of oval shape, and long enough to cover him from shoulder to hip, but it too could be used as a weapon. The metal edging of it was curled under tightly, creating a very formidable bludgeon that could easily break bones when used properly.

Ron saw all this before the man ever even chose him...when he'd first begun formulating a defense for what he felt was an impending clash.

"I am Victorio the Vicious, little man!" the stranger began spouting loud enough for all to hear. "I hail from Loraconte, a 10.2 world that breeds the greatest human warriors the Empire has ever faced!"

Ron was somewhat familiar with his species. They had fought the Kreete hard, but when their planet fell, they took to the stars and became renegades and pirates, pillaging as a way of life. Their breed was indeed infamous across the galaxy, but too, they were ruthless and savage to human colonies more often than to the Kreete outposts.

"I butchered a thousand men on a dozen planets before the slags caught me, so when you meet the Guardian, at least you won't be alone!"

Ron just kept moving, his eyes watching every thrust, every feign, every twitch the man made. His ears locked onto how hard Victorio's breath came, how much his sandals twisted and slipped on the hard turf, and the creak of his armor's leather joints. It didn't take him long to know exactly how much range of motion the fellow had, and how much effort it took to move about with that heavy shield.

The armored man grew bolder and bolder, chasing his prey around the rocky ground at an ever increasing pace, trying to force Ron into a position where he couldn't scamper away. At last he did.

When the newcomer had Ron moving to his left, he suddenly jabbed hard to that side in order to turn Ron back the other way, where he hoped to corral the smaller, unarmed man with his shield swinging in the direction he expected his opponent to go.

However, Ron Allison had played that lethal game so many times, he read the maneuver before Victorio even made it. And so, when the trident pushed outward, instead of retreating, Ron leaped into it. He threw his arms up in front of him and allowed the wide-spaced tines of the trident to slam into his upraised forearms, the center spire directly between them...and then he twisted hard.

That move spun the weapon in Victorio's grip with ease, but the wrist strap wouldn't allow him to be free of it, and thus his arm twisted with it, forcing his shoulder to roll inward and down violently. And the real beauty of that move was that Ron's body continued to pivot until it flew up and over Victorio's drooping shoulder.

In an instant, his feet were whistling through the air in a blindingly fast cartwheel.

Ron's right foot caught the armored man behind the ear with such force that Victorio the Vicious went down instantly, his arms spread wide to catch his falling figure.

Ron's left foot followed quickly, but instead of contacting the man beneath him, it fell onto the shaft of the trident, about a foot behind the tip, and snapped it off cleanly.

Without an instant of pause, Ron whirled once more, that deadly tool now in his iron grasp...but it didn't stay their long.

Before the braggart newcomer could even look up, Ron was walking casually back toward the mine's entrance, the trident's center tine buried in the back of the warrior's skull.

Everyone standing around the fighting circle just gaped at the dead man, still trying to get their minds to fathom that incredible, impossible move...and then their eyes shifted as one to follow Ron's retreating form down the ramp. He hadn't even broken a sweat!

### Chapter Five

### Enough is Enough

Two more weeks and two more rounds of "topside" came and went with Ron breezing through the bouts before something totally unexpected happened. Those newcomers were the most vile, contemptible types of men he could imagine, and when he was forced to end their despicable lives, he had no qualms about it. One morning though, that came to an end.

Each field trip to the outer world tended to mirror the last in its preparation and presentation, and this time was no different. The same groups went out more quickly, and shouted back at those trailing about what species awaited them.

"Humanoid!" echoed down the ramp, forcing every pair of eyes to glance fleetingly at Ron, but he didn't flinch or hesitate. He merely strolled on out at a leisurely pace, flanked as usual by Fraidze and Dex...the two men he'd taken a liking to upon his arrival.

When Ron and his buddies approached close enough to see the new man, Draake was just beginning his speech. The giant was straining to speak slowly, to give the translator time to find a language he hoped the newcomer would understand. It made his gravelly voice even more pronounced than normal.

The stranger was extremely broad across the chest, garbed in trousers and a lace-up shirt that might have been seen in Earth's early nineteen-hundreds' Midwest. His hands were large...not overly so like Draake's...but his fingers were thick and short, looking like something akin to sausages. Ron guessed those digits would be extremely powerful. The man's skin was very shiny and appeared blackened tan, like he had a coating of used engine oil all over. His face was wide like his body and a bit flat, with eyes set far apart, a very short nose, and his hair was long and haggard looking. He was confused, frightened, and angry...quivering from head to toe. He gazed back at the horde of onlookers, scanning them from one end of the lineup to the other. It was obvious that he expected to be attacked at any moment.

Draake ordered him to pick an opponent, but the fellow merely stood still, his eyes darting across the many faces of the Parkanick residents. When he didn't comply, the mighty Benoi warrior lunged forward threateningly, ready to pound him into the ground.

"Wait!" called a voice from the crowd...one that was used to being listened to...and everyone froze as if too shocked to move. He'd spoken in the language of the Benoits.

"What?" their giant leader asked, not believing his will was being challenged. "You dare order me?"

"Draake," Ron explained, "he does not understand you. Let me talk to him. I can..."

"I don't care if he can understand. I will make..."

Ron ignored him and turned to the newcomer. "What planet are you from?" he asked in Earth English.

That language was foreign too, like Ron had suspected, but he wasn't as intimidated by Ron as he was Draake. Ron tried a new approach. "My name is Ron Allison, he said in Raulden speech, pointing at himself. He then pointed his finger at the stranger.

"I am Moordic Inscle," the man said, "from the planet Kirshck."

"I am called Ron Allison, from Earth," Ron told him in the fellow's home world's tongue. For a brief instant Ron was again amazed at the translator's ability, but there was no time for that. "This is the mining moon called Parkanick."

Draake wanted to go and slap Ron down for overstepping his authority, but he saw how easily he was communicating with the new arrival, so he paused.

"Draake Tarbold is the leader of this facility," Ron continued, indicating the giant beside him, "and has ordered you to choose an adversary to fight. There are only so many rations of food here and we are at full capacity now, so you have to battle someone to the death to take their place and live. Otherwise, he will kill you."

"What?" Moordic asked in disbelief. "I have to kill someone else or die? What kind of place is...?"

"One that doesn't cater to the weak or the stupid!" answered the mighty Benoi in a rough dialect the fellow could just make out. Draake's translator had finally recognized the man's speech and adjusted to something similar.

Ron glared at Draake and uttered a low growl. He really detested the fellow.

Moordic didn't like that statement much either but was too confused to press the issue with the massive leader.

"Choose!" Draake ordered again, showing his clear lack of patience.

Moordic flinched at the bellowing giant before glaring at him severely...his anger clouding his judgment.

"What size is your world?" Ron asked quickly.

"A ten-two."

"You don't want to mess with him then. He's an ultra-heavy-worlder. You wouldn't stand a chance. You need to pick someone like you...a humanoid. The food and accommodations here are specified to the tenants. If you take someone's place, you have to fill their niche...understand?"

"Yes."

"Then choose. He has no patience whatsoever...and you're wasting his time!"

Moordic searched the faces of the other humanoids just like Ron had done, and it wasn't long before Fraidze's prophecy was fulfilled.

"Sorry," he said to Ron. "But I choose you."

Ron shrugged his broad shoulders and eased into a stealthier stance. He was no longer overwhelmed by the drastic change in the gravity, the heat, or the air. His body had adapted to the strenuous lifestyle on that cruel, harsh world...one that forced him to become even more hardened than he had been. His hands were more callused than ever, and the bulging muscles that swelled at every turn of his fantastic physique were as tough as tanned leather.

Moordic rushed Ron straight away, trying to grapple with him, but Ron denied him that. Instead, Ron leaped and whirled about, bringing his feet into the fray for an astounding blow to Moordic's head that spun him around immediately. Ron swept his legs before he could recover and the wide span of Moordic's back quickly felt the unforgiving rock of Parkanick's surface.

Ron passed up an easy kill strike and allowed him to stand again. Moordic wasn't well trained in hand-to-hand combat and so the match went even worse for him after that. Ron pummeled him from every angle until he fell flat on his back again...too exhausted and beaten to rise.

"Kill him and get to work!" Draake ordered before turning to leave.

Ron looked at the helpless man at his feet and hesitated. He couldn't see a justification of killing someone who was no threat at all to him. Instead of complying, Ron just struck out for the entrance to the tunnel, passing the lumbering figure of Draake.

"I told you to kill him!" the giant said, his voice grating with anger.

"No. If you want him dead...you do it. I don't kill simply to kill."

Draake lunged at Ron and spun him around to face him. "You do as you're told!"

"Screw you, Draake! As far as I'm concerned, someone dropped him off and they can pick him up again! He is untrained and of no threat...and I'm not a murderer!"

"You dare challenge me?"

"I'm not challenging anyone. He fought me and I won. That's it. I'm done!"

The assemblage had stopped their exit by then and all were now watching, wide-eyed and expectant. Draake was going to slaughter the little human.

### Chapter Six

### Who's the Alpha?

Draake threw a punch that was a blur, but Ron was expecting it and narrowly avoided the connection. He countered with his own blow to Draake's cheek and danced backward, out of reach. It was a good right jab, but the giant barely seemed to feel it and pursued...his usual lumbering movement now gone. He was far from lithe, yet he was incredibly agile.

Ron's internal systems were already in the combat mode, so ramping them up another notch wasn't difficult. He hadn't been in real danger from Moordic, but that was all different now. Now, he saw a creature that was clearly superior in most every physical way, and one who held no compunction about killing him!

Through Ron's eyes the glare of the star above began to shift in hue, from the bright orangish-amber to more of a dirty rose color, and the pounding muscle inside his chest began to beat harder and faster. Adrenaline surged, and so did the blood in his veins, swelling the already prominent bulges in his arms and legs, and across his broad chest. His mind too, shifted into overdrive as the giant came at him. Draake was fast...too fast...so he would have to anticipate, and hope.

The huge Benoi swung again, his knuckles glancing off Ron's retreating shoulder as he spun like a top, leaping again to get his foot on a collision course with Draake's right ear. The blow would have broken most men's necks, so hard did he strike, but the results on the giant were far less dramatic.

Draake's head whipped hard to the left, but he merely carried that momentum around to face Ron again. He wasn't badly injured, but his expression betrayed his surprise. He reached up and wiped his hand across the spot and saw blood...his own blood! It had been a long time since he'd seen that, and it didn't please him to see it now.

Ron had wisely retreated again and gathered himself for the next phase. Draake would surely use more caution from there on out, so he grew even more focused. The filtered sunlight turned redder!

Draake snorted a grunt that sounded like a rhinoceros, and then he moved in again toward the man barely half his size. He feigned twice, trying to get Ron's reaction to commit, but the man-beast he fought had seen far too many foes to show his hand. He used a different technique at every turn, belying his true intentions like a magician. Draake threw punch after punch, but struck nothing but the slightest glancing blows on the slippery, sweat-covered torso of Ron Allison. Ron, in contrast, used a little fancy footwork that enabled him to stay close enough to Draake to connect a few solid boot strikes...landing one to the giant's knee that made the huge fellow's leg quiver and falter for a few litas.

Draake finally faked one way and dove the other, but Ron read it clearly and jumped up and flat out, over the log-sized arm that threatened to corral him. And before he got out of reach, Ron slammed his forearm into Draake's massive cheek. Draake's teeth clicked together loud enough for the audience to hear it, and they all exchanged quick glances of surprise.

Could it be that this mere man could actually stand his ground against such a monster as Draake Tarbold?

Ron hit the ground and rolled away, popping up to take his stance as the Benoi whirled about again, but this time the huge creature didn't try anything tricky or clever. He simply used his ultra-heavy muscles in a mad dash that quickly out-paced his smaller assailant.

Ron saw his avenue of escape disappear in the blurred movement by the Benoi, so he planted his feet and met the gargantuan head on. The gleam in Draake's eyes was clear as his widespread hands enveloped Ron, but he didn't anticipate the next step...as Ron dropped his right fist until it brushed the hard rock of the moon's surface and then shot it upward with every ounce of his herculean strength.

If he was going down, then by the Creator he would get one good shot in!

As the basket-sized hands of the Benoi warrior wrapped around Ron's shoulders, Ron's fist slammed into Draake's throat with a resounding slap that sounded like a thunderclap, and then they both went down in a tumbling mass.

Those closest to the pair grimaced at the echoing thud of both Ron's and Drake's skulls slamming into the stone, and there were also three sharp snaps that could only be bones failing under tremendous stress.

Drake's momentum carried him forward and away from Ron after that collision and they both rolled weakly on the ground. The gaping, eclectic, exasperated crowd all waited without breathing to see which of the two titans would rise.

Neither did for almost a full bort.

Ron's head spun crazily and bright blue/white sparkles filled his vision while the burning heat of a shattered humerus screamed at him from his left side. Through the confusion and pain, his ears kept working though and he managed to roll off to a safe distance from Draake's gagging figure.

The huge Benoi soldier was lying on his back with his enormous hands clutching at his neck. His body fought valiantly to cough, while conversely he was having equal difficulties trying to gather a breath. Apparently his windpipe was delivering urgent messages to his brain of a dire sort, trying to tell him not to inhale while his entire body screamed for oxygen. And at the same time his lungs struggled to restore airflow, a separate, searing burn resulted from that effort. Something was seriously wrong in his chest!

Ron gathered his feet even before his eyes could focus...his anger and desperation to maintain the fight overwhelming his brain's call for time and caution. The Retribution Games had taught him never to hesitate! If his opponent wasn't attacking, then he was injured at least somewhat, and that was when you must strike!

He spotted the hulking mass of Draake sprawled on the ground ten peors to his right and moved toward it. At his first step, all he could make out was a shape, but a few quick blinks later Ron managed to decipher which end was which and he broke into a sprint. Tucking his broken arm tight against his chest, he flew the final two peors, his knee hurtling at Draake's neck.

The giant was no stranger to the art of war either though, so he knew Ron was coming by the sounds of his accelerating footfalls, and so he rolled quickly to his left side, taking the blow at the heavily muscled area surrounding his spine. It was a powerful, painful strike that slammed his head forward against his mighty chest, but it was not debilitating. However, the new barrage raining down on him in the form of feet, knees, and a rock-hard fist were beginning to have an effect.

The next time Ron's full weight dropped against his back, Drake uncoiled his colossal arm like a cobra's strike, catching his much smaller adversary squarely from waist to chest, and flung him a good ten feet through the air.

Ron absorbed the blow as well as anyone could, but still felt his sternum compress violently against his insides and heard the gush of air explode from his lips in a single, horrid cough.

Suddenly he was the one gasping for air on the ground...but Shartae the Invincible regained his feet nonetheless. He stayed in a low crouch, his good hand against the rocky turf, balancing his body while his concentration fought the need to wretch. Instead of allowing that response, Ron used his supreme will and forced his diaphragm to reinflate his emptied lungs.

Drake scrambled to his feet again, still coughing and gasping. His entire body now vibrated in waves of fury and his eyes locked on the cause of that ire.

"Now you die!" he growled in a quick burst of air that scorched his throat.

Ron was no longer a man in a death match though. He was beyond man...beyond human. Somewhere deep in his thoughts he heard and understood Drake's announcement, but closer to the surface, his mind was much too busy to worry about boasts. He observed every twitch, every minute change in his foe's stance, and every correction of balance or sluggish response.

The world seemed to drift into a slow motion blur. He felt like a racecar driver at high speed...the only clear image being directly before him. Everything else was filtered out as not noteworthy, unnecessary input to be shed like a coat on a hot summer day.

Drake charged like a bull, and so did Ron. They were on a head-to-head collision course until the final half step, when Ron dropped suddenly into a slide across that sun-baked ground. It was a maneuver that cost him a good bit of hide, but also one that took him under Drake's bracing grasp.

At the instant he was in position, Ron used both his feet in a horrendous blow to the giant's groin...one that sent the Benoi catapulting into the air in a colossal cartwheel that culminated in his earth-shattering fall to the ground, flat on his back.

Ron was up again, but his right eye was useless as blood poured into it from a deep gash at his brow. (He hadn't completely avoided Drake's attack, and a granite-hard fist had landed.) His chest still rumbled with primordial utterances as he crouched for the next pass, but it was a useless gesture and he knew it. He wasn't so far lost in his battle-crazed mode that he didn't know he was finished...that he could not survive this bout...but his heart still pumped and his body still responded to his orders. Until one or both of those ceased, he would fight!

Ron dashed in once more, his flying feet slamming into the Benoi's face as the larger creature rolled to one knee. It was a brutal kick that crushed Draake's nose and split his lip, but it also put Ron within reach of Draake's four and a half foot long arms!

Draake gripped him by the left leg and Ron instantly attacked with the right, delivering another shot to the giant's face, cutting him above the cheek, but then the Benoi's fist slammed into Ron's face and all he saw was stars.

As Ron's body slammed back onto the ground, his mind went reeling into a collage of his life's experiences...a miss-mashed barrage of images that overlapped and confused him. He saw his boyhood friends standing next to Cache chatting her up like old chums, and enemies from Caron walking the halls of his high school. His dead cousin ran wild with him in the mountains of the Aredanz, and his parents sat in the stands of the coliseum of the Retribution Games. The flashes came at him too fast to separate until it was nothing less than a blur. It was like trying to see thirty television commercials all at once...but it only lasted a moment or two.

The next coherent thought Ron had was that he was flying, but he wasn't. He was being held up in the air with his feet dangling at least five feet off the ground, his throat enveloped in the massive fingers of Draake's left hand.

"This is why I am in charge of Parkanick!" he bellowed to all who watched. "I enforce the rules! I decide what law is bent or changed! The code of survival is clear! One of these two must die! I..."

"He's dead!" came a simple declaration from off to the left. It stopped Draake's speech cold. "The newcomer is dead!"

Ron recognized that voice as the Benoit's dialect, which almost no one watching understood. It was one of Draake's men, a Benoi warrior named Alistropolis Popenegrin. Dex had told Ron everyone called him Al Pope.

"You must spare this one, my Captain," Al told him solemnly. He didn't try to beg or coerce. He was merely stating a fact. "We need him for the mining work...plus...I think he is the one we've been waiting for!"

Ron's throbbing brain tried to focus through the assault of pain and the lack of air, but it was still fuzzy. "What did that mean?" he thought, wondering if he'd even heard correctly through the onslaught of abuse his body registered to his brain.

Draake hesitated further. His need to put a definitive end to the battle was still high, as Ron's was, but he tried to follow Al's logic. However, his reasoning was heavily clouded because Ron had severely shaken his authority and wounded his pride...as well as his body.

The two other Benoits were very close by then, but they would not interfere. Draake was their captain and so his decision would go unchallenged. Yet nonetheless, Bromethius Carennigy (simply Brome to the humans) added another plea disguised as logic.

"We must have seven if we are to have a chance. We are so close...and time is running out!"

Ron suddenly felt a lessening of the pressure at his neck, and then he was drifting back down to the ground. When he stood once more, he thought it was over, but his eyes found Draake's, and he saw the giant's menacing stare a lita before a fist the size of a basketball smashed into his face with the force of a semi, and then the lights went out.

Ron awakened inside the med station. His head throbbed as if it was being used as a kettledrum by an entire marching band. Every pulse of his heart blurred his vision slightly, but he managed to investigate the goings on anyway.

He was secured to the table once more by the strange webbing material, and three Mednauts were busy patching him up again. His broken arm was totally numb and immobilized inside a regeneration chamber that resembled an inflatable cast. It went from shoulder to fingertips. Suspended above it was a holographic display of a numerical sequence that was counting down, having just dropped below thirteen billots.

Ron assumed it was an indicator for the patient to know when he would be released.

He then realized his eye was clear again and knew the gash had been sealed, but he felt the swelling on the side of his face even through the chilling spray that was misting down on that area. He was going to have a black eye down to his chin.

The rest of his figure was in various stages of distress from the blows of the Benoi, from tumbling around on the rocky ground, and from being nearly crushed by Drake's body when they went down together. He couldn't see everything, but a slow, systematic report of his limbs filled in the details pretty well.

All in all, he felt pretty optimistic. After all, he'd survived yet again...and he had almost thirteen billots of rest ahead of him! He smiled and closed his eyes at that, trying to ignore the mini explosions going off inside his skull.

"They need me for what?" he pondered, but only for a few litas. They would let him know soon enough no doubt.

### Chapter Seven

### Exploration

Ron jerked awake again when the regenerator began its stowing procedure, and was fully alert by the time the table started retracting to its standby position. He gingerly slipped to the floor and tested his legs. They held firm enough so he took a quick inventory of his body. Stiff and sore throughout, Ron couldn't suppress a smile. He was whole once again.

The med-station was designed to be completely non-threatening, so Ron didn't fear any mechanical reprisal at dallying inside. In fact, he used the wonderful, comfortable setting to stretch out his recuperating muscles before finally strolling slowly out of the station and into the oppressive heat of the world under that gigantic acrylic dome.

As far as he knew, there was no set time for him to get back to work, so he ventured a look around. The bubble was a good four hundred peors in diameter and as he approached it, he estimated it was about half a peor thick...at least at the base.

Gazing through the clear substance left him rather disheartened. There wasn't a single sign of any life as far as he could see, although he could make out more of the domes in the far distance.

"How do they get the air?" he mused. "Where do they filter it? There's got to be some kind of substation somewhere...and the water too. And who provides the meals if there's nothing up here on the surface?"

Ron's eyes jumped to the sky, wondering if all this was being orchestrated from an orbiting ship...or some entirely alien method. It was a lot to think about, but he guessed his jailers...namely Draake...would start expecting him any time now, so he took what information he had and headed back.

While he rubbed his sore arm (the regeneration cycle had stopped short of full repair as a lesson in carelessness) Ron decided he would have to have patience, and develop a plan. He needed time to finish healing anyway before he could make any attempt at escape...especially since he had no idea what hidden dangers might be involved in such a venture. He would need to be in tip-top shape.

He passed close to the body of Moordic as he picked up the pace back to the entrance, and another definitive thought settled in his mind. There were no discernable openings in the pressure dome, so he had to assume some other method existed to deliver and collect the cast-off of their selection process.

He swept the ground all around, but there were no fresh tracks outside the avenue he was on...the one back to the mine...and as he moved he took great care to estimate exactly how far into the tunnel he walked before turning to the lifts. The underground passages were definitely well within the confines of the dome's protection. Whoever they were, they came and went from that tunnel.

Ron knew the answer to those riddles would present themselves if he could simply wait until someone emerged for the corpse, but that might be a long while and he didn't have the luxury of time.

"Patience!" he told himself out loud, enforcing that order with vocalized words so his inner self would get the message more pointedly.

A careful inspection of the route down to the lifts yielded nothing new, so he reluctantly boarded the small elevator.

"Draake Tarbold," he said with clear disdain in his voice.

He saw Draake as a bully, pure and simple...one who used his superior physical prowess as a weapon with which to rule the lesser beings. He was as bad as the Kreete.

There was a brief hesitation before the lift started downwards, and Ron took a quick glance around. He thought he'd heard someone speaking, but it was far too faint for him to be sure...possibly even echoes from the lower areas.

Then the high-speed transport dropped out from beneath his feet while he was facing the wrong way and it took his breath away.

Ron's eyes flew wide from surprise before his body adjusted to the fall, and when it did he smiled...but not from the exhilaration of the trip. Nearly imperceptible from the rock wall was a slim, perfectly straight, horizontal line about thirty feet below the point where the lift had stopped. It was barely a thirty-second of an inch wide, but it was as clear as day to the supreme woodsman's senses his merger with Kaskle had engrained into his psyche. (That champion hunter-tracker could follow the faintest trail as if it were a freshly cut road, so this discovery may as well have been lined with white paint.)

The slit was exactly the same length as the elevator was wide, and had an impressively well concealed door closing it off.

He'd missed it on his first trip into the bowels of the moon, being somewhat preoccupied at the time. But now, he was positive. That was a level no one knew about. That was a level that could allow the comings and goings of the jailers without the knowledge of their prisoners. That was the way out!

Now he just had to figure out how to make use of this newfound knowledge.

Down into the depths of the mine he hurtled, his mind racing with his newly acquired information. He carefully examined the lift itself, fighting the light feeling of the near free-fall with new-found enthusiasm. It too was well crafted, showing not even a quarter-inch gap along its edges. It made him think about how they could possibly move such a large platform down a several-hoz-deep shaft cut through solid, unbroken rock without blowing the doors out of every level as it passed.

The shafts on Rauld were evacuated of air, so at least there it was understandable, but here was a differing scenario altogether. Here he wasn't confined inside a small box that could be sealed and pressurized. Here he stood out in the open where there was no boundary...where he could reach out and touch the stone...where the rush of the air passing by could...but wait a lita! There was no wind! It hit him just then that going up or down didn't matter. There was no wind.

Ron made a hasty search of himself for any loose item, but found nothing, so he quickly stripped his shirt off and wadded it up into a packed ball. With one hand he dragged his fingers across the rock wall of the shaft. It was smooth and cool as he'd expected. With the other he tossed the shirt upward as hard as he could. It rose barely ten feet before striking something and falling back to him.

"So...there's some kind of energy field above the platform to make it a breathable capsule," he concluded. "Huh."

That explanation gave him more to think about, but his energy needed to be focused on other facts at the moment. Namely, what he was going to do about Draake and the other Benoits. What was that statement between them all about? Why had Brome killed Moordic to save him?

When the platform settled to a stop, Ron restored his shirt, exited, and then headed to his last work station where he caught up with Fraidze and Dex. They were working alongside two of the Parmanians, trying to haul a heavily loaded wagon to the collection point.

Fraidze's face lit up when he saw Ron approaching. "Man, I thought you had a brain in that head!" he told Ron, grinning from ear to ear.

Ron grinned back and shrugged his shoulders.

"You're lucky to be alive...you know?" Dex added, slapping him on the shoulder hard. "You got a death wish or something?"

"Yeah...it's good to see you guys too. And no, I don't. I just don't like the way Draake orders all of us around like we're children! How can he just expect me to kill a man who's no real threat to me? His cut-and-dried bullshit rules are growing a little old for me. We should have some kind of say in how..."

"No...we should not!" came a gruff statement from behind them. It was one of the Parmanians (Centaurs).

The three men all stared at the fellow intensely...nervously. They hadn't realized that guy could hear them. If he told Draake about their little discussion, Dex and Fraidze would likely feel his wrath as well.

Ron was completely surprised by the fellow's intrusion too. He hadn't heard any of those beings assert themselves in the weeks he'd been there.

"Why do you agree with his 'ultimate' command authority?" Ron asked, wanting badly to know this fellow's position in the matter of the community's dynamic.

"Because I wasn't always in this group. I was assigned to another mine a cycle ago. It was chaos. There was fighting every day. There was no order. The work didn't get done so we didn't get fed. Finally, when a cave-in took the life of one of my kinsman here, they transferred me over. I didn't even have to face anyone that day. No, Draake's rule may be harsh...it may be unpleasant...and it may be cruel...but we all live a life of peace and are treated well. If we have to be slaves, this is about as good as you could hope for!"

Ron wanted badly to say that he would not live out his life as a slave, but he remembered Fraidze's warning about escape attempts and kept quiet. The Centaur was blunt and shrewd, and Ron saw no hidden agendas in the creature's eyes.

"I appreciate your input," Ron told him instead, extending his right hand out in friendship. "I spoke rashly and should have investigated more before forming an opinion."

The alien man-beast hesitated a moment before taking the offering. "I am Solidine," he said, squeezing Ron's hand.

Ron cracked a smile at the power of Solidine's grip and said, "I'm called Ron...but Draake has dubbed me..."

"Itsu! Yes, I know."

Ron blushed red at that, finding it odd that he would let embarrassment show so easily. What did he care if some other being wanted to make a joke of him? It was against his nature to feel insecure. His expression must have shown his discomfort at that moniker too.

"Well I wouldn't let it get to me if I were you. I have a feeling he won't be calling you that out of arrogance anymore."

Ron and his friends all looked curious at that proclamation.

"Why do you say that?" Dex inquired.

"Well, you know Draake didn't ride the lift down with us, right?"

"Yeah...so?"

"He was in the med station! 'Itsu' here broke three of his ribs!"

Solidine then spread a broad grin across his face and went back to his duty of hauling an empty cart back to the loading area. Then Fraidze and Dex gave Ron a good look-over and slapped him on the shoulders again.

"No dragen way!" Fraidze told Ron, duly impressed by his feat. "We thought he was having some discussion with the jailers, and that's why he was late coming down. I've never heard of any mere man injuring a Benoi in a hand-to-hand fight!"

Ron's interest perked up at the mention of the jailers, disregarding the obvious hero worship his friends were embellishing upon him.

"You mean Draake actually speaks with the rulers of this place?"

"Well...yeah...I suppose so. He's always passing on any changes to the workload or progress. That's how we know where to send the digger! Why?"

"Oh, I was just wondering who it was that kept us here...you know...who's the real bosses of the facility."

"Good luck finding that out!" Dex said with a snort. "I don't even think Draake's ever seen them. They just send him orders in his cell."

"Really?" Ron said softly, his brain churning full bore again as he joined in with his crew.

### Chapter Eight

### Progress

Back on day three of his disappearance...when Ron was just beginning his instruction of the mining station...his petite Raulden partner was forced into a standby mode that was excruciating to her active nature and her overcharged imagination. Her helplessness and worry were driving her out of her mind, and so she had to come up with an outlet. She chose her daughter.

Starting at the end of that very first dactrai, Cache spent the next two immersed in being a mother to her little girl and forcing her thoughts away from the dilemma they were in. Too, she felt fortunate that she'd collected her baby from their home on Caron before the transporter was destroyed. If she hadn't, she would have been half crazy waiting for the opportunity to see her again.

Still, she nearly jumped for joy when the internal communication system finally chimed to life with Aanlis's voice.

"Cache, come to the com station as soon as possible."

"Have you broken the alien signal?"

"Yes...and no. I shall explain when you arrive."

Cache left Sheyah with her nanny and raced to the highest point in the Gammone complex...the vast, interstellar communication array of Rauld.

"Okay, what have you found?" she asked before she was even completely in the room.

"We discovered how they were able to slip their own carrier wave past our shielding and trump our control. And so far, we feel confident we can block them, but the Central Computer is running aggressive insurgent programs to test its versatility. We should be ready by the end of this dactrai...providing no more faults are found."

"That is fantastic news!" Cache squealed, wondering why Aanlis wasn't more excited...although she knew the slim, petite woman had been at this for the past two and a half dactrais nonstop.

"The bad half of my report is that we cannot break the aliens' code to find out exactly what they did. Too much of their signal is imbedded with our own...like they only filled in the parts they could not steal from us. The problem is that we cannot even tell what snippets they stole from us because they used a combination carrier that was both passive and proactive simultaneously! It has been so frustrating! Whoever they are, they have some true geniuses in their ranks. I am afraid that we will never determine their true purpose from what we have here. I am so sorry."

Cache just gave her a grand smile and a gentle hug, trying to show her heart-felt appreciation without physically hurting her...her heavy-worlder muscles and structure, now fully matured, were a constant, true danger to the slighter, less dense Rauldens.

"You have done so much, Aanlis" she whispered into her ear. "Thank you! Thank you for all your hard work!"

Cache stepped back a bit then and swept the console for a quick catch-up on the general operating status. Everything looked completely normal and was running on automatic for the moment.

"Why do you not take this opportunity to get some rest?" she added. "I can monitor the progress of the tests easily enough, so there is no reason to keep you up any longer."

"Very well," Aanlis replied wearily. "Thank you, Cache. I think I will. Summon me if there is any change in the..."

"I promise I will call you if I need you, Aanlis. But sixty straight billots of mind-numbing work is enough. Go...sleep!"

Aanlis smiled sweetly and glided away in the interminably smooth gate of all Rauldens.

She returned twenty borts shy of a full dactrai later, and found Cache on the floor of the com station, playing with a giggling, gurgling little Sheyah. She stopped abruptly at the scene and watched. Aanlis was still young (for a Raulden woman), only fifty-two cycles old, and didn't have a child of her own yet, so this interaction was intriguing to her. She had known Cache almost her entire life and had never seen her play and be silly even once, so now it took her somewhat by surprise.

After a few borts, she checked the readouts on the consoles.

"You have already deployed the new relay?"

"Yes, of course. The tests were complete almost six billots ago and I did not wish to delay that any longer than absolutely necessary."

Aanlis then twisted her mouth into an odd position. "The propulsion system on the transporter relay can only reach VL-1 times 3-squared, you know. It will take nearly a full santari to achieve its desired position.

"Yes, I know," Cache replied, wishing she had the _Darlile_ to deliver the new unit. It would have saved three weeks of waiting. But that sleek warbird was on the greater task. "I just want to be around when the _Darlile_ sends the next update."

She'd programmed it to issue a hyper-burst report once every dactrai, but the distance the ship was traveling away from Rauld caused greater and greater delays, so she didn't know exactly when the next one would come. At least though, when it did arrive, she would have a reasonable approximation about when the following one would. Currently, the report was two dactrais overdue.

Aanlis nodded her understanding and went to her work station where her job was to continuously monitor the communications of the Kreete Triad. Any information passing through the entire quadrant of the galaxy Rauld occupied was relayed to her station for analysis.

"Anything new stirring in the depths of the Triad?" Cache asked after a while of watching Sheyah arranging words with her three hundred learning blocks. She was barely ten Earth months old and just beginning to spell, so the words were simple: floor, wall, mommy, daddy, Josy, sky, dirt, and the like.

"Nothing too threatening...over and above the attack of three new planets in the Bordineez Sector. More resources for their empire, from what I can gather.

"Mostly, their impetus this past santari is on the upcoming Triad Games at the end of the cycle. Some newcomers to the Empire have been boasting of a real threat to the Kreete's two hundred and forty four unbeaten cycles of domination."

Cache just grumbled at the implausibility of such an occurrence. "As if they would ever allow that! I have seen several of those competitions and it is fairly obvious that they arrange events and venues they are best suited for."

"Yes, I have to agree with you."

Cache snapped her head up quickly. "You have watched?" she asked incredulously.

The Raulden culture was one of total and complete passivism. They absolutely deplored violence, and no member of the society could event consider viewing the ruthless, bloody sports the Kreete play.

"No, no, of course not," she replied, her face a mask of horror at the mere thought of it. She cringed sharply, trying to break the image that had popped into her thoughts. "I read the results...that is all. The lists of deaths during the competitions is enough to solidify my opinion, would you not agree?"

"Yes...yes, I would. Especially when you take into consideration the number of individuals who perish just trying to qualify to compete as part of the final forty-two."

Aanlis nodded sadly. "And those who make it...who put their lives at risk to have such a slim chance to protect their people...well...eighty-six percent of them perish in the effort."

Cache just shook her head out of empathy for those poor souls. "They may try to convince themselves there is a chance for victory, but there is none. What they think is hope is just pure desperation."

A sharp chime broke their attention just then, even Sheyah's. The tiny tot looked immediately at the com station Aanlis manned as if she knew what that sound designated. Cache sprang to her feet to read the report.

"The _Darlile_ is in pursuit," Aanlis said, "but it is trying to track them at transoptic speed, which is practically impossible."

"Not necessarily," Cache said. "I have given this a lot of thought, and if you consider that everyone knows it is impossible, then they do not try to mask their direction when they make the transfer to faster than light. But, since you cannot turn at those velocities, to make any course change requires you to drop down to sub-light. Now, if you try to track someone else, by the time you see the trail where they slowed down, you have already passed them by a huge margin. Then, you have to decel to a point where you can turn without crushing yourself in your own vessel because of the tremendous inertial forces of such maneuvers. When the pursuer finally returns to the point of the escape, the energy particles are scattered so far that the new heading is impossible to determine."

"Yes, I understand all that...the theories of galactic travel are pretty common knowledge."

"Yes...exactly! Everyone knows them. That is why I think we have a good chance!"

"I do not follow."

"Well, first; the _Darlile_ is extremely fast, so overtaking another craft is highly probable. Second; the sensors we developed are at least as good as anything else out there, so finding the signature of the evading craft is also highly probable. Third; (and most importantly in our situation) is the fact that the ship has no passengers! She can withstand inertial forces ten times what even Ron could survive, which is unbelievably high to begin with. Our ship can drop out of transoptic velocity, turn, and be back on course in a small fraction of the time any other could. And once the _Darlile_ locates the fleeing ship in sub-light, the chase is over.

"Then we will find out exactly what is going on!" Cache finished through gritted teeth.

Over the following dactrais, which slowly turned into torjournes (Raulden weeks made up of ten dactrais), the _Darlile_ trailed the faint particles of the alien ship across half the quadrant, having to alter her direction six different times...each time gaining substantial ground on her fleeing prey. But Cache was growing more and more frustrated with the effort. It became clear to her that whoever helmed that mystery ship was incredibly intelligent and wary.

"They know exactly what they are doing...and what we are," she told Aanlis after the third course change, twenty-three dactrais into the chase.

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because they have access to the entire recorded audio and video files they scanned aboard the _Darlile_. They could easily extrapolate the ship's ultimate speed from monitoring the celestial bodies that it passed, and after their original chase, they know much of the destructive capabilities of the ship as well. They also know how I feel about Ron and so they can no doubt surmise the lengths I will go to find them...to get him back.

"It is only logical that these aliens assumed they would be pursued, and so they have entered into a delay tactic...trying to buy as much time as possible and hoping whatever their motives are, they accomplish them before the _Darlile_ runs them down. Any other scenario would have gotten them caught by now. No one would make that many changes at the velocities they are traveling. In fact, if it is even a manned vessel is yet to be determined because putting themselves through this chase would be inhumane to say the least!"

More torjournes went by, and Cache's patience grew thinner and thinner as the delays between updates got longer and longer. She worked out like a mad-woman between those reports, trying to burn off the excess energy flowing through her system and preparing herself for mortal combat...fully expecting an intense, physical battle before it was all over.

The wait for connection of the new transporter relay station finally came to an end a dactrai shy of one santari after it had left...and Cache was there waiting when it did, strumming her fingers impatiently on the counter.

"We have a positive lock," Aanlis announced, but Cache was already on the move.

"Initiating communication with the _Darlile_ now," she said while pressing the "send" order on her keyboard.

After sixty three dactrais of planning and waiting, it took only two litas to establish a real-time call with the ship that was by then more than halfway across the galaxy.

The data began pouring through instantly, but Cache wasn't about to wait and read it.

" _Darlile_...have you located the alien ship?"

"Yes. It is directly in front of me."

"Show me!" Cache ordered, so anxious that she was ready to give the order to annihilate them immediately if needed.

The view the ship relayed though was not what she had hoped. There was just a large debris field floating in space, with no single part larger than a toaster.

Cache's eyes flew open wide at the scene. "WHAT HAPPENED?" she cried.

Instead of an explanation, the _Darlile_ simply replayed the event from its memory banks.

Instantly the view swapped from a stationary one to that of a high speed chase through space. Cache recognized all the usual readouts from her experience in the cockpit. There was a tiny dot in the center of the screen...the alien ship. It was identified as "Target Priority One". The magnification quotient was set at 1,000,000, and as the dot grew in size, the zoom backed off. It was clear that the black Raulden spacecraft was gaining on it very rapidly. The _Darlile_ was running at VL-1 (light speed), staying under transoptic velocity so she wouldn't fly by her quarry in the next nanolita. The fleeing craft was accelerating at the maximum its occupants could withstand but it wouldn't reach the threshold of hyper-speed nearly in time to avoid being overtaken.

When the _Darlile_ was within weapons range, the sleek, ebony warbird issued an order as if it were a living being.

"Alien vessel! This is the Raulden Starship, _Darlile_. I order you to throttle down and prepare to be boarded! You have committed an act of war against the Raulden people by abducting a member of our governing party.

"I demand return of your prisoner immediately."

The foreign ship didn't reply but eked out an additional amount of energy to their drive system...clearly desperate to escape.

"Alien vessel! Drop your speed immediately or I will disable your ship!"

Still no reply.

A single blast of plasma energy Cache knew extremely well leaped from the nose of her beloved ship and enveloped the fleeing craft without further delay or warnings. The craft's protective shielding lit up like a cloud of blue lightning...its edges clearly defined by the attacking energy weapon...but still they kept the throttles open.

The readouts on the viewer showed a thirty percent drop of power in those shields.

The alien ship returned fire, but the _Darlile's_ forward protection barely felt it. The next volley from the sable craft that had stood her ground against an entire armada of attacking Kreete vessels repeated the first, but that shell of protection was visibly closer to the ship this time. The Raulden plasma weapon was rapidly eating away at their defensive barrier.

Cache also noticed the _Darlile_ was firing greatly subdued bursts from what it was capable of. It was clear that her vessel didn't want to obliterate the other ship.

The following ball of energy was much smaller than the previous two, but it crushed the shield bubble around the fleeing craft straight away.

"Alien vessel! Stop your engines immediately or I will disable them!"

Suddenly, a warning flashed across the lower left-hand corner of the _Darlile's_ viewer.

"Alert!" it read. "Close proximity to space debris cloud. Unprotected vessel is in danger."

"Alien vessel!" the _Darlile_ sent. "Steer to new heading of 329.784 by 205.763 by 173.468 immediately. Micro-meteor cluster ahead."

There was no deviation of their course.

"What are they doing?" Aanlis asked, confused by the lack of change. "Do they not understand?"

"Alien vessel! You have ten litas to alter your course or risk hull infringement by incoming debris!"

Cache checked their speed again. It was nearly ninety-eight percent VL-1. She wanted to shout to the _Darlile_ to race ahead and try to cut a path for them, but the black bird lunged forward before she could complete her thought.

The next thing that happened was the _Darlile's_ protective umbrella expanded three fold, large enough to create a safety corridor for the larger ship without risking her own safety. But halfway through the field, the alien ship suddenly dropped power and veered hard to the right, clearing the _Darlile's_ safety net before the Raulden craft could react.

The result was instantaneous. The cloud of tiny shards of rock was immense, covering an area as large as ninety million square hoz. Its mass mostly consisted of sand-sized particles, with none bigger than the average marble, but it mattered not at all. That collection of dust and gravel was all that remained from some deep-space collision of two rocky bodies nearly thirty million cycles in the past, and it was one of the most dangerous threats in deep space. Those "drifts" as they were known to space-farers were generally tracked by the neighboring star-systems and avoided like the plague. At the speed the drifts moved, many times upward of a hundred-thousand hoz per billot, they could do enormous damage to even moderately shielded stationary probes and satellites. But if you added the velocity of ships, which ran at near the speed of light, the inertia of the particles was expanded beyond comprehension. If a vessel's powerful shields fluctuated for a millilita and allowed one B-B-sized projectile through, it would cut through the best armor-plating known to exist. Even the _Darlile_ 's technology-enhanced super-skin wouldn't want to chance it.

Needless to say, those tiny pieces of crushed rock cut through the alien ship like it was tissue paper, shredding it in a fraction of a lita. Next, the fuel cells succumb to the barrage, and in a blink of time the craft erupted with devastating results.

Cache's stomach clenched violently, her emotions fighting dual battles. The elation of seeing her own personal revenge against the villains who'd violated her property, her invention, her pride, and her love, battled against her profound bewilderment about what to do now for more information she desperately needed.

Aanlis watched in horror, knowing that loss of life was surely expected in that blast. She gasped and looked to Cache for guidance at such a time...but Cache didn't provide it. She was already moving on to the next phase.

" _Darlile_ , switch back to real time. Give me a status of the wreckage."

"It took five dactrai for the drift to pass. I have collected as much of the remains as possible, analyzing it with sensors as well as the help of the mednauts...for the biological fragments."

Aanlis had heard enough and slipped away on the verge of vomiting. Her team followed her toward the door in hasty fashion.

Cache was surprised at first and watched them go in wonder...and then she realized what was happening.

"Forgive me, Aanlis," she begged, "I did not think!"

Aanlis just waved her right hand with her left still covering her mouth. She and her staff were gone an instant later.

Cache felt terrible for subjecting her friends to such a disquieting situation, but went immediately back to work.

"Continue," she said.

"There were only a few pieces with enough size to gather data from, and that was only minimal bits. From the scans I performed, the inhabitants of the craft were definitely humanoid, bipedal, and shorter by half compared with the present day Rauldens. They were also highly intelligent and extremely motivated...suppositions made by their known achievements against our technology and their willingness to sacrifice themselves for their goals.

"The remains of their vessel suggests they are from a lighter world than Rauld...perhaps only and 7.5-8.0 gravity world. The metal used in the craft is an older, more common alloy than what the Kreete use at present. It suggests that the ship was not built by the Triad."

"The aliens must have reconfigured an old ship with upgraded engines and advanced computer systems. Possibly it is a secret sect operating outside the knowledge of the Empire," Cache suggested. The _Darlile_ did not respond. The A.I. of the ship would not spend time on conjecture or restate the obvious.

"What firm intel have you gathered about these mystery beings' mission or homeworld?"

"They destroyed their computer memory-banks before committing suicide. Also, they kept that information in a single chamber, unlike our multiple backup caches. I have no video or audio log information. However, they did emit a single hyper-burst of some kind before perishing. I am still analyzing its meaning, but it is unfamiliar and so short that it may be impossible to glean any usable information from it."

Aanlis had managed to recover from her attack of queasiness by then and was hovering just within hearing distance again. As with many humanoid species, Rauldens were incredibly curious. She immediately returned to her station to begin screening the information as well.

"I will do what I can with it, Cache. We may get lucky."

Cache stood there with her head spinning. Those aliens had done the impossible. They had spanned the void of space, hacked the most sophisticated system known, captured the most wanted man in the galaxy, and then erased nearly all trace of themselves. She was impressed...angry to be sure...but mostly impressed.

"We could use them on our side," she growled...then..."This is too much for any mere bounty," she concluded out loud, "no matter the exurbanite amount."

"I concur," the ship replied.

" _Darlile_ , stand by and hold your position. I intend to come aboard. I just need time to deliver Sheyah to Caron. I will be two billots."

"Standing by," the ship replied.

Cache then hurried from the com station and sped away to her daughter's play area. Klarissa Norstroe met her there and they discussed her need to leave...to deliver the child to the Gitove house. Sheyah heard Josy's name and immediately broke out in a big smile. Klarissa understood the need for haste and quickly helped pack up Sheyah's favorite things and necessary supplies.

They were back at the transporter in thirty borts, ready to head home.

(Cache and her daughter had a house constructed on Caron so they could be on a world more suitable to both of them and to be close to where she felt Ron would live...with Josylinia Gitove.

The whole arrangement started out very awkward for Cache, but Josy was just too wonderful to be uncomfortable with. It just wasn't possible. Now they got along fine, and Cache even missed her when she was away on a mission or on Rauld.

Aanlis was back at her station when Cache and Sheyah returned, ready to dial the Caronian receiver for the pair, but before she could...

"We are receiving a priority message from Earth," stated a calm, female voice over the intercom of the facility Aanlis and Cache were preparing.

"What now?" Cache asked...or rather grumbled. "I do not have time for..."

But before she could complete her thought, the portal aperture point next to her brightened with an image that left her totally speechless.

After a few long, soundless moments passed, the image spoke.

"Hello? Can you hear me?"

Cache was still dumbfounded. It had been nearly two and a half santari since she'd left Ron's homeworld and five since she'd seen the person in front of her, so the vision stunned her deeply.

"Hello?" the image said again. Then the woman turned her head to someone next to her, out of sight to the Rauldens. "It's still not working, Mr. Allison. There's no sound or picture."

Cache finally collected herself and set Sheyah in Aanlis's lap before triggering the communication device, allowing two way audio and video.

"Yes...hello," she said to the gorgeous brunette staring back at her.

"Oh!" the woman blurted as she jumped in surprise, whipping her head back around to face Cache. "I-I-I-I'm A-a-angela..."

"Angela Christine Allison," Cache finished for her.

### Chapter Nine

### Explanation and Duty

Angela recoiled just a fraction at that. She knew the Rauldens were highly advanced, but was still startled that they knew who she was. After all, they were from an entirely different planet, weren't they? "Yes...yes, that's right. But how did...?"

Cache just waived her hand dismissively and smiled a tentative smile. "What can I do for you, Angela?"

She found it extremely coincidental that the first person from Earth to call on the Allison's "secret" com-link would be his wife. After all, when she'd left, they were under strict orders never to tell Angela about Ron and his new persona.

"I need some information, if you don't mind," Angela said, and then her brow furrowed and her eyes narrowed. Apparently she was trying to recall something. "Wait a minute! I know you!"

Cache simply remained calm and tried to keep her smile intact.

"You were there! You were there with him! You came out of the ship and ran to him...to Ronin...at the airport in Colorado that day! Right?"

Cache forced her smile to warm a little and nodded. "Yes that is correct."

Angela then swept the figure of Cache with open scrutiny and flashing eyes. The hazel color of those gem-like orbs bristled full green as she did so too.

It didn't matter what planet a woman was born to, Cache noted. The reaction to any form of threat to her emotional charge was met in the same manner. And Cache knew exactly how she felt. It was like the first time she'd seen Ron with Josylinia, back at that primitive camp where he'd almost died. She'd been angered, confused, heartbroken, and crushed all at once.

Angela's face flushed beet red as she struggled to compose herself and return to the reason of her call.

"Can I talk to my husb...I mean...I would like to speak to Ron...please," she asked curtly, her words edgy and harsh while her eyes glistened from welling tears.

"Oh!" Cache replied; a little shocked that the secret had been so short-lived. "I see. Well, I...that is...he...cannot speak with you at this time."

Angela's expression quickly changed from hurt and bewildered to all-out angry. "Why not? After all...I am his _WIFE_ , you know!"

That single word was like a stab straight into Cache's heart. She'd known from almost the very beginning that Ron had been married long before ever having met her, but they'd both thought the Earth was destroyed for so long that it seemed like an altogether different reality once they found out the truth. Now that piercing actuality was staring her in the face with agonizing results.

"Yes...," Cache replied as calmly as she could while her own jealous, hot-headed nature tried to break through, "I do know."

"I told you, Sweetie," said a different voice...a man's voice...from Earth's side of the screen. Cache recognized it to be Ron's father, Kurt. "He said he wasn't sure how long it would be before he got home...that is...back to his new homeworld."

Angela's face turned back to Cache. "Is that true? Has he still not made it back? It's been three and a half months!"

Cache's gut wanted to implode in that moment. She desperately wanted to evade that question. This was a chance to bide her a little more time...time she could use to gather information before...

"Yes, that is true. Ron has not returned just yet."

"Oh," Angela replied dejectedly. "Then I suppose...I guess I'll have to...uh...call back."

Her face fell into such obvious sorrow that Cache's own emotions shifted as well; cooling her previous anger rapidly. Having lived the rollercoaster ride of the past cycles allowed her a unique perspective of how her earthly counterpart must surely be feeling. Her heart felt a heavy thud as it ached for Ron's young bride. Cache easily recalled the many times she'd wished for some news about Ron while he had been separated from her. Each dactrai had felt like an eternity. A woman's longing was enormously profound and interminably deep.

"Would you tell him to...I mean ask him to call me?"

"Of course I will."

"There's so much I want to tell him. We have a lot of...well...I'm rambling. I'm sorry to have bothered you, Cache."

Cache caught a look from Aanlis that showered her with guilt. Rauldens deplored lies nearly as much as violence. She couldn't believe her long-time friend...almost like a sister...could be committing such a crime. No matter the reason, the truth was something that should be shared with all.

"It is no bother. I will tell him as soon as I hear from..."

She could see that Angela was shattered, but was about to politely step away from the com without getting any answers to her undeniably distressed questions. It was torture to watch...dredging up too many past memories to deny.

"Wait!" Cache suddenly blurted.

The _Darlile_ had been waiting a torjourne already. A few more billots wouldn't matter.

"Angela, wait. I have not been completely honest with you."

The look on Angela Allison's face was one of confusion, with a splash of indignity.

"What? Why? Is Ron there?"

"No...not about that. He hasn't made it back. The truth is...well...actually, wait a lita...that is, a second. This conversation should be done in person. If you will kindly step back, I will be right there."

"Be right there?" Angela repeated, clearly confused. "I thought this was just a video-phone-thingy."

"I shall explain in a moment."

She turned to Aanlis who now had a whimsical look about her. "This ought to be good!" she said dryly.

Cache scooped Sheyah up and stepped to the Starflex Portal's launch point marked out on the floor by an inset depiction of a star. She looked down at the infant in her arms and smiled. "Ready to go on a trip to a new world?"

Sheyah smiled hugely and clapped her hands together.

"All right, Aanlis. Initiate the Starflex."

It took barely a lita and a half before the view in front of them changed from the brightness of the com room to a dimly lit den in Ron's parents' home. Cache could see Angela, Jessica, Kurt, and Derek Allison all staring back at her with open astonishment. She took a tiny breath and walked right in, immediately feeling the change in gravity. She wished briefly that she'd brought her heavy coat to help compensate for the lack of weight she felt, but this was going to be a quick visit, so she would just make do.

"Oooooohhhhhh!" Sheyah cooed when she felt the change. Then she started clapping and jumping up and down, testing the light feeling.

Cache smiled at her little girl and told her, "It feels strange does it not?"

Sheyah nodded with her eyes big and round, taking in everything in her new environment with great scrutiny. Cache let her gawk while she faced the Allison family.

"Hello," she said pleasantly. "Mr. and Mrs. Allison...it is very nice to see you again...and you too, Derek."

The toddler in Jessica's arms smiled at her before acting bashful by hiding his face against her bosom.

"Please, Cache, call us Jess and Kurt...and it's nice to see you again too."

"And just who is this little gal?" Kurt asked of his lovely blonde guest. Jessica had informed him of just who his granddaughter was, but he was playing as if he didn't know for Angela's sake. They didn't want her to find out about Sheyah's parentage without Ron's express consent.

"Everyone, this is my daughter, Sheyah. Sheyah, say hello to the Allisons."

"Hello," she gurgled in a high child's voice with a massive grin, her eyes panning from one face to the next. She spoke it in perfect English as well. Cache had insisted she learn her father's language...along with Raulden, Caronian, and a few others.

"How in the world could she be talking?" Jessica asked as everyone gaped at the prodigy infant.

"Those of my race have unusually long life-spans compared with Earthlings. After over a year's time...by Earth standards...in the womb, at birth a Raulden newborn is far more mature than those here on your world. Not in size, of course, but in brain activity, sight, pulmonary action, and coordination. From there we develop slowly physically, while exceptionally quickly mentally."

Angela moved in to have a closer look at Sheyah, but her expression was one of confused recognition. "She's beautiful, Cache," Angela told her, stroking her little face lightly with one finger. Sheyah was tickled by her action and burst out in a broad grin, staring up at her with her eyes sparkling brightly.

Angela's own eyes suddenly flew open wide as well...out of utter surprise. "That grin! My God! That-th-th-that's Ron! Cache...your child! She's...she's Ron's daughter...isn't she?"

Cache remained passive and tried to keep her smile intact. She could only imagine the tidal wave of emotions Angela was feeling just then, but she was expecting it...and she felt it was long overdue.

"Yes, Angela...she is...but Ron does not know."

"He doesn't know? How can that...?"

"It is a long story...one I am willing to tell my part of...but it may be difficult to hear."

Angela was already fanning herself, finding the temperature of the room suddenly stifling. Instead of blowing her stack though, she tried some distractive measures.

"May I hold her?" she asked, suddenly overcome with jealousy that Cache had the girl she'd always hoped to have with Ron.

"She'll be heavy for you...and strong...due to her density."

Angela didn't hesitate at all, sweeping in and gathering up Sheyah.

"Oh, my word! You were right! She feels heavier than Derek. How old is she?"

"Approximately eleven of your months."

Angela carried her over to the sofa and took a seat with Sheyah nestled tightly to her. Sheyah reached up and grabbed her cheeks so she could study Angela's face more closely.

"Pretty!" she said. "Mommy, is she not beautiful?"

Angela's mouth dropped open and she looked to Cache quickly. This little tot, no bigger than a one-month-old spoke clearer than her four-year-old son.

"Yes, Sweetie...she is."

Angela struggled for a few moments, but then gathered her whirling thoughts enough to get back to the reason for Cache's visit.

"Okay. I think I'm ready. Please tell me what happened to my hus...to Ron."

"Well, before I get to that, the first thing I should say is that I am responsible for Ron going missing from your planet. You see, our world was under attack and..."

Cache went on to describe the set of events leading up to the Starflex Transfer Portal's malfunction...and how Ron was literally plucked from Earth and dropped into her life.

The Allisons had already heard the tale a couple of times, but followed along patiently, still mesmerized by the incomprehensible complexity of it all.

"Angela, I must confess I was attracted to Ron...the Ron I know...from our very first meeting. I mean, how could I not be? He appeared out of nowhere and saved my life through some truly unbelievable acts of bravery and physical prowess...not to mention he is beyond gorgeous!"

Angela stayed calm while she listened, but her stomach steadily twisted into knots beneath her cool façade. After all, this beautiful woman with the most breathtaking eyes of brilliant violet was speaking openly of craving the love of her life. But it had been several years ago now, since he'd vanished from her life, so she was able to keep a more objective opinion. It bothered her greatly though, her Ron being so wanted by such a lovely admirer.

Cache carried on with the story and shocked the entire group with her descriptions of Ron's fighting abilities, his innate woodsman skills, and his courage. (When Ron had told his version of the story to his parents, he'd left out a great deal, not wanting to come across as a braggart)

"I swear to the Guardian above that he is completely fearless," she said when recounting his brawl with Kale.

She told them how he'd nearly died that day, about how she, the Raulden Council, and Ron all found out what had really happened to Kaskle as well as to him, and then continued on about their training together.

"Even after I had made it absolutely clear that I wanted him, he never faltered from his mission to return to Earth...to you, Angela. And furthermore, after finding out he could never stay...could never adapt to life here again...he kept true to that goal. Seeing you once more was all that mattered.

"I was so jealous of you that I thought I would go mad," she chuckled lightly, recalling the first trip to Earth. "I still am, I guess."

Angela's brow shot up instantly at that. "You? A warrior woman of such intelligence...from such an advanced race...who's so spectacular I feel I couldn't even be your house maid? You're jealous of me?"

"Like you would not believe! Do you not see why...truly? You are his first, truest, purest love! I could never come close to that...not in my four-hundred-cycle lifetime."

Angela's self-worth skyrocketed with that statement, allowing her to feel she was at least somewhat equal to that blonde bombshell across from her.

Cache then continued with her story quickly, and by using a pocket holograph unit, showed them a brief portion of the view of Earth she and Ron had seen on that fateful day. The Allisons were appalled, and instantly understood why Ron and Cache hadn't stayed long...why the visit from the infamous black ship was so fleeting.

She described his long bout of depression following that trip, his despondency, and his short-tempered tendencies.

"He was absolutely devastated," Cache told them. "For months, he wandered across the surface of our world seeking some way to collect himself, to find purpose and focus again, but Angela...his losing you very nearly killed him."

She paused a few moments to let the family absorb that statement...to get them ready for the next part of the story. Kurt and Jessica had already listened to Ron's less emotional version, so much of it was already known to them, but when they heard Cache's more descriptive account, their hearts bled again for their son...for the suffering he'd endured.

"By the time he decided he would choose to live, I had already made my way to Caron. He followed and battled his way across that primitive, brutal world in search of me. You see, we had bonded in more ways than just friendship. The battle for Rauld had forced us to forge deep ties of trust, respect, and admiration for each other, and his desperate struggle to locate me brought more emotion into the mix as well. He knew how I felt about him, and his need not to lose another person close to him fanned the flames in his heart for me.

"When we were finally together again, Ron was ready to move on...to begin healing his shattered heart. But we were...romantic...for only one single day before our mission to help Caron drastically turned on us...for the worse.

"Through a terrible mistake in judgment...a snap decision I had to make without nearly enough information...I betrayed Ron to our enemy and he was captured."

They all stared at Cache with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. Ron had not told them that little detail. He'd just said he was captured. How could this lovely woman who openly loved Ron betray him?

"If I knew what I know today...even though it most likely would have ended my life that day...I would have made a different choice. The devastation of losing his trust was just the beginning of the nightmare that followed for him and for me...but much more so for him."

She spoke cautiously of what happened after that, trying to spare everyone the details, and told them about how her own desperation derailed her body's ability to regulate her ovulation. While she was growing life, his was being brutally threatened.

"I will not speak of what he suffered other than this. What was done to him inside those walls was more than inhumane, beyond atrocities, and totally, utterly evil. He was driven to a state of pure survival alone, stripped of all but the slimmest version of humanity, and condemned to a ghastly life constantly on the verge of death.

"I cannot even begin to describe how I feel every time those memories resurface. The guilt and shame of my part in it is nearly enough to..." Cache had to take a break there, to push aside those recollections and calm herself.

"Well, I made it through because of her," she told them, staring at her little daughter sitting so patiently in Angela's lap. "In my lowest hours, she kept me going and gave me hope. She is my miracle. She is my life."

Cache carried forward then, telling of how Ron escaped his captivity only to fall again to death's door because of the poison of the Treochy. She explained the story Ron had told her of how he was rescued and brought back from the brink by the Gitoves...and she told Angela about Josylinia.

"If any woman alive can make you jealous, Angela, it would have to be Josylinia Gitove. Her beauty is beyond comprehension. I am fairly confident of how I appeal to the other sex, as I am sure you are too because you are truly stunning, but to see her is to feel like a shadow is cast upon yourself, dimming you until you pale in comparison. Her every movement is pure grace and elegance, yet she has not one shred of arrogance or superiority in her. She is as calm and comfortable living in a single room hut as she is in a state-of-the-art mansion. She never complains or dwells on what might be. She is utterly content to live in the moment and not worry over the future or the past. And she has openly pledged herself completely to Ron. She wants to build a home and a life with him on her world...and I think that is for the best."

That statement shocked Angela intensely, and her expression transferred the sentiment.

"I know what you must be thinking," Cache continued. "How could I ever willingly accept another in the place I want more than anything? It is simple really. I had my chance with him. I lost it when I chose wrongly; putting into motion half a cycle of terror and agony he had to endure.

"You were robbed of him by me as well. I stole him from the life he wanted most...here...on Earth...with you. Through my actions...no matter how innocent or misled I may have been...I have punished him more than any other. I finally have the opportunity to see him truly happy again, and I will do everything I can to make that happen. I promise you that."

Cache went on to finish the tale of how they were reunited and thrown together again as partners to save the world of Caron. She spoke of how Josy had sided with Ron over her own brother and how they managed to overcome the attacking fleet and make it to Ron's rescue just in the nick of time.

As Cache spoke, the Allisons sat on the edge of their seats barely breathing as she described the aerial battle Ron fought against the drone attack ships. She was very detailed in her descriptions of all the events, and they each felt as if they could almost see the war raging around them.

When she spoke of the Kreete being exiled from Caron, they all relaxed and sat back with sighs of relief, their hearts running rapidly from the drama.

"Of course, you all know what happened here on your own world."

"Yes," Kurt replied slowly, nodding his head deeply, "and we know Ron is convinced that his entire ordeal...everything he's been through up until that attack began...was somehow meant to prepare him to save Earth.

"You must understand that, Cache. He doesn't blame you in the slightest for what happened. He told me and Jess that even though he was never a very religious man, he was certain his fate was guided from a power he could not understand. And you shouldn't be so hard on yourself about what happened at the cove either. When he spoke of it, his single regret was that it had forced a wedge between you two. And his own guilt about how he mistreated you on that stormy night haunts him still."

Cache had heard all this from Ron over their time together since reuniting, but it was extremely gratifying to hear it again...like this. She was never quite sure he wasn't just telling her what she wanted to hear just to ease her own conscience.

"Thank you for explaining that to me, Kurt," she said softly, her eyes heavy with tears of relief. Then she gathered herself again.

"Now that, unfortunately, is not the end of my story. On the way back from Earth, I used the transporter that I just utilized to get here and was home instantly, but Ron chose to stay with the _Darlile_. It is a thirty dactrai trip that should have been over several of your weeks ago, but when he dropped out of transoptic speed...that is faster-than-light-speed...he was tricked into opening the transporter aperture. When that occurred, an alien race took control of the system and..."

She couldn't get herself to say the words, and her pause sent a chill through Angela.

"He's not hurt is he?"

Cache again hesitated too long on her reply, searching for the right answer.

"Oh, God!" she gasped, her face turning ashen white in an instant. "He's not...DEAD...is he?"

Cache began to shake her head no, but then caught herself. "We do not think so."

"You don't think so? What does that mean? Did the ship crash? Is he lost?"

"No...well...it is complicated. He has been...taken. That is all we really know."

"Taken? By who? Why? What do they...?"

"We have not determined that...at least, not as of yet."

"But how could they do it? You're so advanced! You couldn't stop them?"

"No, but we never thought to prepare for the method they used either. They were quite ingenious."

"Is he in danger? Are they going to hurt him?"

"Please forgive me again, Angela, but we do not know. We are trying to determine what species they are first. That may give us a chance to figure out why they went to such lengths to capture him."

"What species? Oh, God! This is like some crazy episode of 'The Outer Limits'!" Angela said out of pure exasperation. By then she was nervously bouncing Sheyah on her knee...an act that the little girl found immensely enjoyable. Her mind suddenly went whizzing with a whole new assortment of questions, her own agenda quickly forgotten. "From what Ron's parents said, you don't have any military, or combat troops on your world. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"Then who's going after them? Who's going to go and help Ron?"

"I am," Cache said bluntly. "In fact, I was headed off-planet when you called, and even though this visit was necessary, I must leave you without any real answers. Please believe me when I say I will not rest until he is found and released. You have my word!"

"But what can you do?" Jessica asked...her face pale and strained for her son's safety. "You're just one woman!"

Cache smiled at her again, but this time her grin was hard a stone...tinged with wry determination. "My dear Mrs. Allison...you would be shocked at what I am capable of."

Her eyes were laced with a cold resolve that spread immediately to those present. General Allison had some knowledge of her feats during the battle for Earth, and Angela had listened to Sam go on and on about her amazing accomplishments as well, so it wasn't difficult for them to believe she was quite a force to reckon with.

Cache had been standing the entire time, not wanting to destroy any of the furniture the lighter Earthlings had. She stepped over to Angela and smiled down at her, trying to seem sweet and feminine while her heart raced for combat with Ron's abductors. She scooped up Sheyah a moment later and went back to the portal.

"I assume you know that this visit must stay completely confidential...even...well actually, especially from Sam. Your government would likely take offense to my coming and going as I pleased."

They all nodded and agreed without hesitation.

"Excellent. Now, I will do my best to send updates about our search for Ron, but I must warn you, they will not be regularly spaced. The galaxy is enormous and so it will likely take santaris...months...to track him down. Try to be patient. When we find him, Aanlis will notify you...and when I have him back, I will make sure he contacts you."

Angela Allison sat staring at Cache blankly. She felt completely useless and desperately worried. There were so many questions rattling around in her head...so much confusion and angst. She glanced over to the side and saw her son playing with his grandmother. Even after the incredibly bizarre last half-year, their family was currently safe and sound...all because of Ron and the woman from another planet staring back at her. How could she possibly question what she had absolutely no idea how to comprehend, much less offer her aid? She caught a happy look from her little boy just then. She would simply have to be patient, and pray for a miracle. Maybe God would grant her another one. He seemed to have grown fond of her family.

"For all the hopelessness this explanation must be leaving you with, I can only say this," Cache said to them. "Ron is the strongest, toughest, most intelligent man I have ever met. Those who know him on Caron think he is blessed by the Guardian and cannot be killed. I choose to accept their assessment. He is alive out there, and he will survive as long as it takes for me to find him. He knows I am coming...just as I knew he would when I was lost.

"Go about your lives as best you can. Angela, for what it might be worth to you, Ron is happy for you. Even though his own heart was crushed when he saw you and Sam together, he was also elated that you had found love again. He didn't want you to live your life alone. Sam is a good man. I fought with him. I know. He is brave and honest and is totally devoted to you and Derek. He loves that little boy like he was his own child. If you were concerned about what Ron might say or think, do not be. Marry Sam and be happy. Have more children.

"And to you all, good luck. I will be in touch."

"God's speed to you, Cache," Jessica said. "We will pray for you...and for Ron."

With that, Cache triggered the transporter and stepped back into the com station on Rauld. She turned and waved one last time, and then the link went dark, leaving Cache and Aanlis pondering the next step. At that moment it didn't look very promising.

"We will continue with our plan, Aanlis. There is no reason to deviate."

"I agree. I am initiating the transporter."

Cache nodded once and readied herself again. The next instant brought a new picture to life. The cottage was aglow with the morning light of Caron's white sun and welcomed her and Sheyah home with its cheerful beckoning.

"Are you ready to see Josy?" she asked her daughter.

"Yes, mommy...I want to see Josy right away!"

Cache didn't even stop to look around her home, but strode straight out and down the path to the newly built mansion of Karne Gitove and his family. Karne was off with his son on their regular patrols, but she saw Josy out on the massive clipping machine they used to cut the five acres of grass around the house. As she completed a turn, Josy saw Cache coming and pulled the lumbering beast up short, leaping down and racing toward her in a blink. She wore her usual garb of a pair of short pants and halter top, which today were fire-engine red, and seeing her again confirmed the assessment Cache had made to Angela about her incomparable beauty. Even running, she was the picture of elegance.

"CACHE!" she cried across the lawn...her elation at the sight of them clearly evident by the dazzling smile she wore.

"Hey, little one," she breathed as she glided to a stop next to her blonde friend. She swept Sheyah up and spun her about immediately, causing the tiny girl to squeal with joy. "How are you, Sheyah?"

"Fiiiiiiiiiiine, Jooooooosy," she replied while taking another spin.

Josy squeezed Sheyah to her bosom and looked at Cache more closely. She was surprised she'd come alone...that is, without Ron. It took less than an instant to realize she was deeply troubled.

"What's wrong?" she asked while rocking Sheyah side-to-side. "It's Ron again isn't it? Something's happened."

"Daddy's missing!" Sheyah blurted before Cache could answer.

"He's missing?"

"Yes, Josy. I am afraid that is true. We should go inside and I will explain."

She hurriedly recounted everything that had happened over the past santari to Josy and Mishea...Karne's wife...leaving out the part about the visit with Angela. She then headed back immediately, determined to waste no more time. Josy was terribly distraught, but she too knew of Ron's ability to adapt and survive, so she took it fairly well. She also knew Cache would leave no clue uninspected, and she would find Ron no matter how long it took.

Within a single billot Cache stood once more in the high altitude com station of Gammone, and stared into the cabin of the ship she'd created.

"May the Guardian watch over you," Aanlis told her.

With her jaw clamped tightly, Cache Kuar stepped through without further delay.

### Chapter Ten

### Bonds of friendship

"Itsu!" growled Draake Tarbold. "The digger is building up too much debris on the far side. Go clear it away."

Ron hated the way the giant treated him, but wasn't in the mood for another trip to the healing center which was sure to come if he disobeyed the ultra-being, so he headed out. A hand appeared out of the gloom and quickly gripped his left arm to slow him down.

"Stay away from the center of the chamber," Fraidze huffed to Ron, he clearly being winded and drained from the day's work. "I heard the operator say the floor is only half a peor thick and there's an empty lava tube a thousand peors deep under it!"

Ron swept the area swiftly with his burning eyes. He was dripping sweat and covered in the dust of the mine from twelve straight billots of work in the bowels of the planet. They were behind on the day's quota because they'd been topside again earlier. Ron had survived another round of his captors' "selection" process, but his right shoulder was badly bruised and extremely sore. Everyone could tell he favored it as he worked, but he uttered not a word of complaint and kept up with his portion of the assigned toil.

"Thanks," he told the bigger man and then headed out again, this time angling around the perimeter instead.

The group that day was large, with almost all of his sleeping quarters' neighbors in the immediate vicinity. He'd wondered about that at first, but Dex informed him that the Benoits had been ordered to stay out of the chamber that day. Now he knew why. It was for fear of destabilizing the floor and falling through. That meant all the work had to be done by the humans or the centaurs...and the total tally could not be short!

Ron worked his way around the digger and its support crew and began the mindless, back-breaking labor once more. All the while, he went over and over his knowledge of the prison facility searching for some inconsistency...some chink in the security...some way out of that place. It was the only way to combat the seemingly endless drudgery.

Everything was going slowly yet methodically, until...

"Wait!" sounded a sharp cry from one of the digging crew off to Ron's right. "Wait! WAIT!"

Every pair of eyes jumped to the scene instantly...urgency like that came rarely down in the blackness of the mine, and only when absolutely necessary.

Across the sparsely lit work area Ron's keen eyes saw the problem immediately. A fracture had begun to run up the wall the digger was boring into. It was growing fast and shooting out across the ceiling above them. The men operating the huge machine ceased their efforts, but the inertia of the heavy flywheel did not come to a stop as abruptly...and not nearly quickly enough.

In an instant, three more cracks appeared. They looked like black lightning-bolts quick-frozen in the stone. The hard, igneous rock that had been superheated in the last pyroclastic event...and made up the overhead dome...had shattered as a result of the vibrations the digger was sending through it due to the machine's pounding and grinding.

All too familiar with the hazards of the job, the giant Benoi captain spotted the danger as well and snapped into action.

"GET OOOOOOOOUT!" roared the mighty Draake who was standing at the entrance of the work-sight, now frantic. He leaned in as far as he could, wanting to rush in and physically throw the men clear, but he knew he would only endanger them more.

Bart, Dex, and Fraidze were on the opposite side of the space from the doorway and were the first to be affected by the danger. As they dropped their tools and turned to run, a section of the ceiling fell. Bart managed to dodge it, but slammed into Fraidze who took Dex down with him. The three of them crumpled roughly to the stone floor and for a moment disappeared in a cloud of raining debris and choking black dust.

Ron too had to dive to the ground to avoid some falling chunks, but he was up and dashing for the exit before he could get trapped. The only problem was that just when he thought he'd made it, the thin shell beneath him crumbled under the onslaught from above.

As the gut-wrenching feel of weightlessness took his breath away though, another sensation struck him. His right, upper arm suddenly felt like it was caught in a vise, twisting his already sore shoulder around until his entire weight was suspended from it. He felt around for something solid to grab onto, but there was nothing.

Coughing and squinting through the cloud of dust, Ron saw what had happened. Al Pope was stretched out over the abyss, his left hand latched onto Brome's who was anchored to the stony wall, and his right clamped to Ron's arm. As Ron quickly comprehended what had happened to the floor of the chamber, Al tossed him smoothly to the adjoining corridor like he was a child's toy.

Ron landed in a crouch and immediately searched out his friends. When he couldn't find them, he spun about and returned to the former work chamber. The digger sat at a thirty degree tilt, part of its support structure having been sucked into the chasm.

It wasn't until Dex stirred across the way and caused more debris to tumble into the abyss that he saw them. Fifty feet away...across a void of nothingness...Fraidze, Bart, and Dex began gingerly untangling themselves from their haphazard tumble. They were bruised and scraped, but whole.

Ron scanned the chamber and saw nothing but steep, crumbled, sheer cliff. The trio's small shelf of stone was the only remaining horizontal surface within sight. The digger was sixty feet away, off to the right, and hung on only because its penetrating legs were buried into the far walls. It appeared totally lost to any further use by the team.

Ron briefly wondered how they could hope to do their work without it, but his thoughts returned to the stranded men before any answer surfaced.

His mind went instantly into overdrive, scouring the scene again for ways to bridge the gap to his comrades. That's when another variable settled into the equation. From the seemingly bottomless shaft of stone drifted a certain, vary identifiable scent...furastinine gas! It was a naturally occurring substance that always accompanied the ore they mined but could be combated with adequate ventilation and a daily dose of vercilias serum. The problem here was that the cave-in had obstructed the air movement and caused the gas to pool. And since the only way to get the serum was in the food they ate, the men needed to get out of there before the cages closed. (It was a clever motivational tool the captors used to ensure the inmates ate their rations also, because death from furastinine poisoning came slowly, with excruciatingly painful convulsions that lasted for days.)

A fast check confirmed what Ron already knew. They had no rope, no ladder, and no other long-reaching apparatus with which to affect a rescue...but that didn't deter him. His experiences over the last few cycles had convinced him there was always a way...no matter what the circumstances.

Draake checked his chrono and snorted.

"We must head back," he announced as dejectedly as his voice could manage.

Ron knew he didn't want to abandon his men, but the timer on the cells would not wait. The inmates had to be inside by their designated time.

"We can't just leave them there!" Ron growled up at the giant.

"If you have some idea, let me know," Draake barked back at him angrily.

Ron's mind was still racing for some solution, so he didn't answer. Draake turned to walk away and the others began to follow.

"Wait!" Ron shouted. "I have a plan."

Ron explained his plan to the group quickly, only then realizing how insane it sounded. They just stared back at him with glazed eyes.

Al Pope was the first to object. "That is pure suicide!"

"Well, we've already lost one man to the pit. If we lose three more here we'll never make our quota and we'll be exterminated...right?"

Draake thought about that for a moment while the rest scratched their heads and whispered.

Al shrugged his shoulders and returned to the cave-in. Then he positioned himself as Ron had suggested, standing at the very edge of the deep shaft, while Ron backed off as far as he could. Next, in a mad dash, Ron sprinted toward certain death in the depths of the planet, but as planned, when he reached the point even with the giant Benoit warrior, Al used his tremendous strength to redirect him to the necessary vector.

Across the open chasm Ron flew at a forty-five degree angle from his previous momentum. He was more than a little dazed by the carom too, so when he landed against the leg of the digger, he bounced off it immediately. With the reactions of a wild animal though, Ron grabbed onto the strut closest to him as his body dropped into the pit once more. His full weight slammed against his sore shoulder with mind-numbing sharpness, but he held on.

At first he thought he'd torn something in that joint but then concluded that it was merely dislocated. Either way, as he fought his way upward the pain cleared his head and allowed him to focus again.

Without delay, he attacked the long boom of the digger with the tools they kept on it and in just a couple of borts had the thing loose. It was very heavy and awkward with only one good arm to work with, but Ron managed to begin fishing it toward his crew in short order. When the end of it teetered at the edge of his reach, Brome snagged it by swinging one of the other men out to get it.

Meanwhile, there was a pair of men digging out a makeshift support groove at the edge of the entryway, their picks and chisels flying in a fury. They were ready by the time that fellow reeled in his end of the support.

The three of them managed to get it wedged into the groove quickly, but there was no way to secure it other than by manpower. Therefore those of the crew that could reach it braced the long rod while Ron calmly walked out atop the thing like he was merely six inches off the ground instead of over a bottomless shaft. When he reached a point closest to the trapped men, he dropped down and hung from it with his knees.

He swung back and forth judging the distance. It was still a good fifteen feet or so. Then he caught a glint off the sweat on his arms and reconsidered his position. It would be very difficult to grab sweaty skin on sweaty skin and that could mean disaster. He flipped himself over on the next pass and hung from his fingers instead. They were still dry from the dirt and grit of the preparations so his hold was secure. The only thing was that his right arm seared in burning distress.

Again Ron swung himself until his feet were as close to the men as he could get, and then he called to them.

"You'll have to jump and grab my legs!"

The look on their faces was one of absolute terror. Those hardened men who'd fought and killed their way forward to survive the rules of the mine, did not care for that dangerous game in the least. They each glanced to their partner as if to say, "You first!"

"JUMP!" roared Draake, his patience completely gone by then. They were all running out of time to meet their scheduled limit.

Dex was the first. He was also the lightest. When Ron started upward in his next pendulum swing, Dex dove out like a Hawaiian cliff diver. His face slammed into Ron's shins hard and he felt his nose snap, but that was nothing compared to if he would have missed, so he disregarded the pain instantly and concentrating on holding on. His heavy-worlder grip was firm and tight on Ron's heavy-duty work trousers, so he did not slip down at all.

When Dex's body's weight was added to Ron's however, Ron heard a crunching, grinding sound from his shoulder before it erupted in a white-hot blaze of agony...but still he held on.

Through gritted teeth Ron said, "Climb up!"

Dex climbed up his body as he held on, and then Ron sighed with relief when the ebony-skinned warrior transferred to the support arm and then worked his way hand over hand to the edge where Draake hauled him to safety. By the time he stood on firm ground again, Ron was setting his jaw against the next onslaught of pain...because Fraidze was airborne.

More crunching and more searing heat slammed into Ron's brain when his comrade latched onto his ankles, having barely reached him. Fraidze cursed under his breath as the rush of the swing sent his stomach into a mixture of butterflies trying desperately to escape and knots binding his lunch from doing likewise, and so his fingers gripped Ron's legs like steel coils.

Sweat poured off Ron's face and chest as he held on with every morsel of strength he could muster. Fraidze was a large man from a class ten-point-two world, and so his weight was staggering, therefore the stress to withstand such an addition to Ron's own battered frame was equally staggering. Ron hissed at the new level of pain he was forced to withstand. It was so intense he thought he might pass out, but he just growled and blinked and shook his shaggy head clear. The bad thing was that he was also losing feeling in his right hand and wondered if he could hold on long enough for one more round.

"Thank you!" Fraidze said when his fingers finally grabbed the support post. "Thank you, my friend!"

Ron felt equally grateful when Fraidze' mass separated from his own, but he was too worried to respond and instead just started his prep for the next man. He regripped the support, but suddenly had no input from his right hand. His fingertips may as well have been cut off since the damage in his shoulder was apparently blocking any signals from further down the line. Instead of going by feel, Ron stared up at his hand and mentally locked his will to maintain his hold...and hoped it was enough.

He then looked out to the final man...Barthume. "Hurry!" he screamed in his mind but the words were locked there as he gasped for more air in the quickly thinning atmosphere of the depths.

Bart leaped out powerfully and wrapped his long arms around Ron's waist. He'd met Ron's approaching figure before the apex of the up-swing and drove the little bit of air from his lungs instantly, jarring Ron's smaller frame hard enough to draw a gasp from the others.

Ron saw stars circling about his head as he strained for his grip to hold and prayed his right hand would obey. A quick peek revealed his fingertips were the only thing still attached to the support rod.

"LOCK!" he commanded to his digits. "Lock and hold on, damn you!"

Down they swung weakly, his momentum of the pendulum lost now.

Bart didn't stall his escape at least, to Ron's great relief. He threw one hand over Ron's left shoulder and then heaved himself up on his rescuer's body to grab the pole with the other. Four quick moves later he was being hauled up to the cavern's floor leaving Ron alone on the support.

Ron tried to follow him when the jostling of the rig subsided, but when he released his right hand it simply fell to his side without further response. Aside from the feeling that it had been completely torn from his torso, Ron got no feedback at all.

To further compound the situation, the rising poisonous gas was growing thick as well and it dulled his mind horribly. He hung there from one arm now, and saw no way to move to safety.

"Oh shit!" Dex hissed. "Move out of the way! I'm going out there to get him!"

"No!" was all Draake said, slamming his huge, open hand against the obsidian man to send him away down the tunnel. "Get everyone moving back to the elevator...NOW! We are out of time! If Itsu cannot make it, he is lost. Now MOVE!"

With that order, Draake began snatching everyone else who had helped with the rescue and tossing them after Dex. That ended quickly, and he stood alone in the chamber's entry. He then looked sternly at the hanging man who had risked so much to save the others.

"Well? Are you just going to wait until your grip fails and you die? Or are you going to move your puny ass?"

Ron just stared back from a situation which appeared all but hopeless. He couldn't focus his thoughts...and he was spent.

"Is this the final act of the great 'Shartae the Invincible'?" Draake goaded. "After all the stories of miraculous victories...all the praise and hype...all the glorification of the greatest human warrior alive...you are going to die because your little dragen arm hurts?"

Ron's mind heard the insults and his anger rose sharply. Focus suddenly returned. He really hated Draake's condescension.

"Well if 'the Great One' can't figure a way out of this little problem, so be it. You can die alone. You're not worth me missing my dinner."

Draake turned gruffly and moved to leave, but before he took two steps he heard the rumblings of a wild animal coming from behind him. He stopped and spun back around.

Ron had his ankles wrapped about the pole, and then he did something remarkable. He released his hand-hold! Ron's body whipped down and then up where he arched his back like a gymnast and grabbed hold again. His face was a mask of hardened determination and his concentration was absolute. Without a lita's hesitation, he let go with his ankles and his body swung once more, pivoting on that iron-hard grip he'd placed on the pole, his right arm simply dangling beside him.

That maneuver set the support pole bouncing vigorously and it was on the verge of escaping its slotted rest when Draake's heavy foot slammed down atop it and anchored it as securely as if it were welded into the mountainside.

Ron ignored the agony from his useless limb and grappled the pole once more with his ankles, ignoring the help from the giant. He was too focused on his goal. Again his torso plummeted through the arc of the move, but instead of grabbing the pole something else grabbed him.

Draake Tarbold yanked Ron out of that precarious hole without another word, and sent him sailing into the adjoining tunnel where he slid and stumbled to a rough and painful halt. His mind was reeling from the lack of oxygen and the effects of the gas, so he didn't fully understand when Draake ordered him forward. A moment later though, when he was shoved roughly from behind, Ron got the hint and started jogging. However, his efforts were sluggish because his head was so cloudy.

Draake then reacted atypically of his normal self. Instead of shoving Ron forward at a faster pace, he scooped Ron's smaller figure up and bolted down the long tunnel. It was a good half-hoz to the elevator, but he didn't slow for a single step. In fact, when they got to the open lift, he dashed in hurriedly, slamming into the far wall hard with his shoulder.

"Living quarters level!" he barked to the mechanical device, and up they shot. Then he turned to Ron, who he'd set down by that point, and said, "You must make it to the med-station before our time is gone! Do you understand?"

Ron nodded his comprehension of the order and tried to breathe deeper and clear his head. It wasn't easy.

Once they arrived at the proper floor, Draake stepped off and turned again.

"Emergency medevac!" he shouted at the lift and watched the door slide immediately into place.

He then hurried to his cell as the last of the strobing lights reached their culminating cadence.

Ron likewise dashed out and bolted for the medical facility as fast as he could. His head was still swimming from the effects of the gas and he stumbled and bounced off the walls of the tunnel, but he managed to reach the unit in time to prevent a lock-down of the facility.

Once inside, he eagerly awaited the slide-out table and eased onto it without hesitation. The burning sensation in his shoulder melted away when the sedation protocol activated, and he quickly drifted into a blissful repose...not knowing how long he'd be allowed such luxury.

When he awakened, he found it was halfway through the next day, and his arm was fully repaired and barely aching at all. He was rested and relaxed and his breathing was smooth and easy, with no signs of the gas left in his system. He even felt full, the station having fed him through a specialized tube.

"Wow!" he exclaimed, realizing he'd been in there far longer than was necessary. "That's niiiiiiice! I wonder what brought on such a show of generosity."

As an answer to his question, a Cnaut glided over and a holo-message appeared three feet in front of him. "Level 1028. Report to Brome."

Ron headed out light-heartedly, but the stench of the place slammed into him abruptly and all thoughts of gratitude were immediately erased. He mentally cast aside his nearly euphoric demeanor and turned more serious and pragmatic. They had simply repaired their slave so he could perform more work.

A rested body did two things for Ron Allison though. First; it gave him hope. Second; it allowed his most dominant, and most lethal, weapon to kick into gear...his mind. The Kreete were the most powerful and advanced beings in the known galaxy, but they had underestimated his resourcefulness many times over the past several cycles...a fact that had cost them dearly. His abilities to thwart or circumvent their numerous attempts to either contain or kill him had proven beyond even their extensive capabilities, so why would his success against these lesser creatures be any different.

He saw that his jailers didn't have the mindset of the Kreete or they would simply have let him suffer and die, to be replaced by the next hapless soul they could find. That convinced him the threat of mass execution of his fellow workers was merely a control mechanism to keep order.

From that moment on, his thoughts were focused on a single task...escape!

### Chapter Eleven

### The Hunt

Cache boarded the _Darlile_ with great reservations. She was afraid that even with all they'd done, the search for answers was at a dead end. If the ship hadn't been able to find a trace of who had operated the alien vessel by now, she doubted they ever would. Still, she had to do something. She had to try.

Her mood swiftly took a small step upward though. It was good to feel the mighty warbird under her feet again, the slight vibrations of the running engines bringing back so many wonderful, as well as harrowing, memories that her heart fluttered with an adrenaline rush. It took several borts of recollection and fond introspection before she managed to push that aside and concentrate on the task.

At that time, she took her seat at the controls of the ship.

"Take me back to the beginning, _Darlile_. Show me when the ship exploded."

They began at that point; methodically reenacting the event more than a hundred times...even in super-slow-motion...searching for any detail that may have been overlooked. It was extraordinarily tedious and aggravatingly stressful, but Cache had no other clue in her search. This was all she had to work with, so she worked.

Two dactrais of intense scrutiny got her and her mechanical partner nothing. The speed the alien ship had been moving obliterated everything, leaving such a vast debris field that it was simply too much to deal with. It would take weeks, maybe santaris to inspect it all. Every piece of the strange craft had been pulverized, vaporized, or incinerated beyond identification. It was utterly hopeless.

After another dactrai's fruitless exam, Cache finally forced herself to face the reality that her only lead was lost.

At the moment of that conclusion she was striding through the length of the main cabin, having been pacing for billots and racking her brain for some new avenue to explore. She stopped short and attacked the padded wall violently, pounding her fists against the bulkhead with all her strength...and then she screamed a long, drawn out release of anger and frustration. Had it not been for her high, feminine voice, she would have sounded a great deal like Ron at a similar moment of exasperation.

As it was though, she switched gears in her mind, utilized her advanced, pragmatic sense of purpose, and saw the unproductiveness of her gesture. It was then that she began anew.

She decided to take the next best route and begrudgingly made her way to the cockpit. Her patience was low and she felt in a terribly irritable funk. Losing was not to her liking.

" _Darlile_ , calculate the best estimation of the heading they were on when you last had contact."

The area jumped into the center of the forward viewer with the coordinates depicted at the very bottom. She studied the area carefully.

"There is nothing there closer than a santari's travel at VL-1 to the fourth...but at the speed they could achieve, they would not have gotten there in a lifetime!"

"I estimate a ninety-nine-point-eight percent chance that they were readying for another course correction when I overtook them," the ship said calmly.

Cache concurred with its assessment, but that left them even more in the dark. They could have been heading anywhere...even back the way they came. That's what she would do if she were trying to cover her trail. She examined the aliens' many course changes the _Darlile_ had recorded and found absolutely no discernable destination.

Feeling a bit lost about what to do next, Cache began calculating a possible search grid to hunt for solar systems that were both inhabitable and off the current Kreete charts for known species. Whoever they were, they did not appear to be in league with the Triad.

Less than three billots into that mundane task, the viewer lit up with a warning.

"Alert! Incoming spacecraft!"

Cache was startled out of her concentrated state but was quick to recover and react.

"How close? Have they got us in sensor range?"

"There sensors will have us in twenty litas."

She was strapped in by then, and with the _Darlile_ 's engines already running she was off to the races immediately...although in a different direction. She chose one following the long-gone cosmic debris field and a magnetar, a super-dense neutron star expelling enormous amounts of x-ray and gamma ray energy bursts. The extraordinary star's influence...even at such a distance...would help mask the _Darlile_ from the alien craft.

"I want us to stay as close to the debris as we safely can, but monitor their actions without them knowing where we are. Overlay their sensor reach with ours."

The scene jumped into an altered view instantly...one with her new parameters...and she saw the closure rate was fast; maybe too fast. The only cushion was the scattering effects of the magnetar's radiation flow. She pressed harder on the throttle. It was going to be tight!

"What about our trail? Can you tell if they will be able to detect it?"

"The type of scanners they use will definitely be able to tell a ship was once there, but the influence of the T-89 star will make it difficult to accurately measure the residue. Furthermore, they will likely suspect much of the high energy particles pooling in the area came from the accident, or an explosion of some part of the destroyed vessel. And following the path of the cloud will further confuse any readings they may be able to find. The radiation disturbance from that mass of debris alone leaves a wide wake of turbulence in space...an excellent cover for our trail."

"Well, let us hope so. We need to find out as much as we can about them before having to either fight or run from them...and I do not intend to run!"

"Acknowledged."

The foreign spacecraft was braking hard by then and slid to a silent stop a few thousand peors from the edge of the debris field with their scanners scouring the area.

Cache had the _Darlile_ coasting through space at that point, in order to give off as small a heat trail as possible, and she used tiny thruster blasts to bring the nose of the ship around to face the newcomers. Once the _Darlile_ 's structure was between her engine plumes and the other ship, she just sat there and watched.

"Is this intruder similar to the craft that you caught?" Cache asked.

"No, but its engines are."

"Is that so? Well, since the first vessel had extensive upgrades, it is likely to be a safe bet that this one has as well."

"Agreed."

"So, our chase may have finally led to a clue. We will have to find out as much as we can about them without arousing their suspicions."

"If we scan them, they will know it."

"Very well then. What can you see?"

The primary viewer changed once more and flashed into a perfectly clear picture of the alien ship moving slowly about the wreckage. It was approximately five times the size of the _Darlile_ , but still quite small compared to a typical intergalaxian spacecraft. It held three engines at the very aft end and an odd-looking antennae array that resembled whiskers sprouting from its forward hull. There were five distinct levels inside it with each having numerous windows visible along its three hundred peors length, and there also was a pair of stubby "wings" a little further back than halfway.

"How many crewmembers were aboard?" Cache wondered. "How lethal was their ship? Where did they come from? Why were they here? Were they the ones she was looking for or merely curious about the accident?"

Cache wanted to unleash the _Darlile_ 's powerful sensors at the ship very badly to get some answers, but knew that was not the smart thing to do, so she fought her desire fiercely and remained motionless.

The alien ship spent the next several billots combing the debris field just as the _Darlile_ had done, and every bort that ticked away made Cache more anxious. It was clear after the second billot that they were searching for something in particular, and that peaked her attention greatly.

Finally, after eight solid billots, the ship came to an abrupt stop.

Cache hadn't moved other than to relieve herself once, but now she jerked forward in her seat suddenly...her eyes straining at the screen.

"Magnify by five-hundred percent!" she ordered.

The forward viewer changed instantly. The ship that had encompassed the center third of the screen suddenly filled it with only its nose. A small door then slid aside to allow a Cnaut to exit the craft and drift slowly through the debris.

"Stay on that bot!" Cache said anxiously. "And get me a closer look!"

The view then began to move with the little robot, as well as pulling it in until it appeared to hang just arm's length away. Even in the dimness of deep space, very detail of its outward appearance was as clear as if it were sitting outside on a summer day.

The robot was nothing special. It had no distinctive markings or construction that would indicate its origin, and might have been a standard maintenance Cnaut that performed a variety of simple functions across the Triad.

Cache stayed glued to its intended path, watching while barely breathing. She knew it would not go far because it wasn't designed for space reclamation. It would only hold a small amount of thruster material.

Sure enough, the tiny machine stopped merely a hundred peors from the main ship and deployed its six tentacle-like arms in a roughly oval pattern. A moment later those arms came alive with electrical charge...visible static jumping brightly from each of them.

The field of scattered debris within a hundred feet of the bot slowly started converging on the point at the center of those arms.

"Creator above me!" Cache whispered in surprise. "Whoever they are, they know a thing or two about security! They are reassembling a polarized data node."

The _Darlile_ 's artificial intelligence was well versed in that type of data storage, so it did not respond to her announcement. Within its own memory banks were similar such devices that once depolarized would scatter into billions of pieces that could not be reconstructed without the exact assembly sequence and polarity specs. It made thievery of vital information absolutely impossible.

The point of consolidation was directly between the robot's tentacles, and soon it began to accumulate physical properties in the shape of a sphere. Over the following billot it reached the size of a softball.

"That is a huge node," Cache commented to the ship around her, talking to it as if it were a living, breathing partner. "If it is as advanced as our Raulden ones, it could hold three times the capacity of yours."

"Easily," the _Darlile_ responded.

She continued to watch and almost immediately noted the assembly was complete when the little robot stopped giving off electrical charges and instead, grabbed the floating information ball. Just as soon as it touched the device, the Cnaut calmly and smoothly spun about and began gliding back to the alien craft.

"We must have that node!"

"Agreed."

"But I have been trying to figure out a way we could get to it before they do, and I just cannot! If we move, they will have plenty of time to destroy it...and possibly themselves as well since their apparent allies did just that. And we are too far away to disable their ship before they can fire on the bot."

"Boop-boop-boop", sounded an alarm on the ebony ship's control panel.

Cache nearly jumped out of her seat.

"What the...?"

"An incoming vessel has just reached our sensor range, and it is approaching at point one VL-1."

"What type of..."

The viewer was already showing the ship's stats.

"It is a Kreete attack vessel...Marauder class," the _Darlile_ said.

Those sleek, overpowered and heavily armored ships were a terror to confront in the wide open spaces between solar systems. They were primarily used as enforcers or for assassination raids, and rarely returned with survivors of any mission they were placed on. Cache knew immediately that they were there to destroy the alien ship, but what really sparked her interest was how they could possibly know the ship was there?

That question would have to wait though...at least for now.

"How long until they are within weapons range?"

"Sixty-four litas."

"How long before the alien ship sees them?"

"Twenty-two litas."

She watched the small Cnaut gliding slowly back to its berth while her mind raced with possible conclusions. If she did nothing, the one link to Ron's captors would likely get destroyed and leave her totally lost as to any future direction. If she decided to show herself and fight, she would firstly be in for a nasty encounter with the Kreete attack ship. Secondly, the alien vessel would be alerted to her spying and surely make a run for it without her getting a clue about its origins. And lastly, they might still get destroyed by the Marauder before she could prevent it.

The retreating robot made it to the access panel a few litas later, so Cache was forced to show her hand.

With a flip of her wrist, the _Darlile_ 's systems all came up to full power and she dumped every joule of energy she could into the weapons' accumulator. That massive capacitor began to fill as Cache's heart-rate began to race. She'd gone there looking for a fight and now she had one coming straight at her.

"The alien ship has detected us," the black warbird announced.

"We have to let them go and concentrate on the..."

"Boop-boop-boop...," sounded the alarm again.

Cache's eyes flitted immediately to the highlighted speck on the right side of the viewer.

"Another Marauder is inbound at point-six VL-1. It will intercept..."

"Boop-boop-boop!"

The alarm chirped four more times in rapid succession before it went silent again. Seven Marauder spacecraft were then swiftly converging on the area of space containing the debris, and they each came from different points of the spatial compass. It seemed like a well-organized attack since even at the speeds they were moving, they would be able to give chase in any direction. That drastically changed Cache's previous plan.

" _Darlile_...pinpoint a message to the alien ship."

"Alien vessel!" she announced with all the authority her sweet, almost lyrical voice could command. "Set your course to the heading I am sending you, and MOOOVE! I will cover your escape!"

They didn't have time to weigh their options or suggest any alternate plans, so they obeyed her commands and blasted away with their engines running hard. The _Darlile_ was already underway and approaching the maximum sustainable acceleration its pilot could handle.

When Cache banked the ship to drop in behind her original quarry, the stress of the move made her gray out slightly, but she did not yield to the strain, following what she'd seen Ron do so many times before. Momentary spans of intense G-forces were risky, even borderline dangerous, but also necessary.

The direction she'd given the aliens was one that culled out three of the incoming ships, they being at too harsh an angle to turn in time to give any real chase. Banking that far at those speeds was absolutely suicidal.

The remaining Kreete attack crafts were spread several litas apart and she hoped she could keep it that way until her quarry had made the jump to transoptic (faster than light) velocity, but that was going to be difficult. It would easily take twenty-five to thirty billots to reach that speed in a normal vessel.

Two of the Marauders opened fire from extreme distances but did not coordinate their attack. Cache merely darted the _Darlile_ nimbly around the target ship to intercept the weapons before they could strike, and the _Darlile_ 's shields absorbed the concentrated plasma energy without damage.

The next volley was different however. It came from the closest Kreete ship and was well within optimal power range. Again Cache placed her beloved spacecraft between those in retreat and those in attack. The result was much more exciting.

Cache's teeth clicked together harshly as her aft shields took the hit. Although the balls of raw energy had a physical mass coefficient that was infinitesimal, the speed they were fired at was so great that it magnified the effect to a bone-jarring degree.

The _Darlile_ 's shields registered a five percent drop in absorption strength.

"Really?" Cache growled at the incoming vessel. "Is that the best you can do?"

Her delicate finger pressed down on the trigger for the aft cannon and returned fire. Three blue lights of compacted destruction belched out and raced for the incoming ship.

The Marauder tried to evade the burst, but the velocity at which it was moving prohibited any truly remarkable maneuvers so two of them struck home solidly, engulfing the ship in a bright blue lightning cloud.

Cache watched their shield strength diminish by fifty percent...her custom designed charges proving they were still far ahead of the Kreete technology. (Of course she had recalibrated and enhanced them since the _Darlile's_ last encounter)

The Marauder was right on top of her by then, overtaking her and the alien ship easily with their substantial head-start in velocity. The incoming vessel cut loose again with its cannons, scoring direct hits, but by then Cache had nestled right up alongside the alien craft and extended her more powerful shields to catch most of the attack. That extension gave up much of the absorption capabilities of the protection though, draining it by nearly thirty percent.

That attacker was past them a moment later and of no further threat, but three more were still inbound. One was approaching very quickly, it too running far faster than the retreating ships had managed as of yet.

"All right then," Cache huffed out against the constant pressure of acceleration. "Try this!"

The mental intersect she had with the _Darlile's_ computer rotated to a new weapon...one she had installed during the down time on Rauld while she was repairing the damage of their last battle over Caron. It was a defensive warhead designed for deep space operation such as she now faced, but was untested.

Two spherical grenades the size of beach balls fired from the ebony ship's aft section. They flew perfectly into the path of the Kreete warship and even though the Marauder glided neatly aside to avoid collision, the warhead exploded an instant before they passed. The result was incredible. The grenade erupted and dispersed millions of B-B-sized pellets into the path of the incoming ship.

Those pellets were specifically designed to stay solid for one bort only. Afterward, the molecular cohesion would bread down and allow the individual atoms to separate, insuring they would not remain a threat to other spacecraft in the future. Their other feature was that they were attuned to the frequency of the shield generators of the Kreete craft so they could not be deflected away before striking. At the velocity the attackers were moving, those pellets sliced through their ship's fuselage like it was wafer-thin glass.

The Marauder didn't explode, but its defensive systems quickly failed when the power coupling feeding the shield generator sustained a direct hit, leaving it open to the _Darlile_ 's cannons. One plasma burst was all it took to end the career of that dreaded warbird, but two more ships were screaming toward the _Darlile_ with flashing guns.

Cache felt the vibration of the assault through the bones of her beloved craft and she gritted her teeth at her predicament. She knew she could evade most, if not all, of that attack if she weren't tethered to the slower, weaker craft, but it was simply too vital to protect to let her break off and defend herself properly. She fired back of course, but the newest threats were at a more moderate...and maneuverable...speed so it was more difficult to get a kill shot. Too, they stayed at a distance that played to their advantage, even moved away to safer areas when their shields weakened too much.

As the fight went on, the Kreete ships alternated their positions to keep the pressure on the _Darlile_ while maintaining a safer posture, biding their time until the other members of their group could slow down and join them.

Cache immediately saw what their strategy was and her mind raced with ways to thwart them. However, the alien ship was an anchor she could see no way around. She could do nothing but just hold her position and hope for a miracle.

Over the following few billots, things continued to deteriorate, and when the fourth Kreete attack ship finally joined the group of hyenas circling the _Darlile_ and her charge, they began a weaving dance of death for the pair.

First one would swoop into range and fire its weapons and instantly bolt from the return volley. The _Darlile_ could drain their shields to the point of collapse fairly quickly, but by then they were out of range and another was firing, and with the mandatory delay to refill the plasma capacitor, they were getting a lot more shots than she was. Time was against her and the Kreete knew it.

When the _Darlile_ 's shield strength dropped to a mere eight percent, Cache at last realized she needed to do something drastic...and quickly. Even though the loss of the alien connection would be devastating to her search for Ron, if she and the _Darlile_ were destroyed, he would have no one to come to his aid if his whereabouts ever became known. There was no doubt in her mind at that point. She needed to get out of there and save her ship.

" _Darlile_ ," she said with a weighted sigh, still shaking from the latest round of plasma fire, "prepare to retract your shields to cover our flank. I am going to make a run for it during the next..."

"Incoming message from the alien ship," announced her mechanical partner.

"Rendezvous with this vessel at these coordinates," read the message, along with a six part spatial grid location. It was very far away.

"Why would they...?"

Suddenly her question was answered as the escape pod from the alien craft burst from the forward section of the ship and rapidly fell back. Without powerful engines to keep up the acceleration pace, it was gone in a wink.

Cache tracked it with her rear scanners and watched in horror as it began to heat up until it literally vaporized. Her heart shuddered as she plainly saw five humanoids had been inside that thing when it went.

At the instant the pod ejected, the alien ship leaped forward at a rate previously unseen, causing the _Darlile_ to surge forward as well just to keep it protected. Cache had to immediately check her emotions about the lost crew because it took every ounce of her physical and mental strength to keep the crushing pressure of the surge from making her pass out. Even then, the alien vessel still managed to out-pace the chasing black warship because the _Darlile_ would not compromise its captain's life for any reason. It was hard-wired to protect any human cargo.

Still, with the help of a superbly designed flight suit, crafted by one of the most advanced races in the cosmos, Cache could withstand acceleration forces even beyond the mighty Kreete's abilities, so the impending threat of her demise lifted quickly.

The Triad's attack dogs saw the pod eject and thought they had their quarry, but when it ignited and the empty ship increased its accel thirty percent, they were taken by surprise. They then saw it and the _Darlile_ pulling away and pressed as hard as they could, but it was clear right away that they could not match the rate and were left trailing badly and desperately trying to figure out a way to keep up.

Cache scanned the alien ship and saw it was running on autopilot at one hundred and thirty percent maximum safe power, now unhindered by any humanoid passengers. Every system that had been utilized to keep the crew alive was now off, even the air recyclers. Other than the shields that kept the ship safe from the particles wandering about deep space, the alien vessel had become a guided missile hell-bent on escape.

The _Darlile_ continued to follow it for another ten billots, falling further behind by the lita, until it engaged its faster-than-light drive. At that point, the mystery ship vanished from her sensors and Cache had to begin hoping for some better news at the rendezvous point.

The upside of the situation was that the Kreete threat had fallen back too, allowing the ebony warship to recover her protective layers and patch up some of the internal damage sustained from long battle.

By that point, half a dozen maintenance Cnauts were floating all about inside the _Darlile,_ restoring each system to its proper standing with the characteristic unhurried patience of all machines.

At last the _Darlile_ reached VL-1 and released Cache from the deeply padded prison of the captain's seat. The anxiety of the day's battle and the stress of the long period of strong acceleration left her mentally and physically exhausted, yet she stayed at her station long enough to initiate the transoptic drive and verify that it was working at its optimal level.

After that, even the fantastically mesmerizing vision of space at those speeds was unable to hold her attention any longer. She stumbled wearily to the rear of the ship and to her personal quarters where she showered and ate before sliding into bed for the following entire dactrai.

Once rested, she was in no hurry to reclaim the pilot's position either. And since the computer had shown her destination to be at least two torjournes away, she knew she would have plenty of chances to get lost in the beauty of the cosmos. Instead, she spent a great deal of her time in the main body of the ship, exercising, planning, and training with weapons. The region of space she was headed into was one she had almost no information about, and so she wanted to be as thoroughly prepared for any conflict as she could.

Too, she missed her little Sheyah and the periods of training and preparation helped take her mind off their separation. It pained her deeply to be apart from her child for so long, but this mission was too important to allow her heartache to stop her. Ron had to be found and this was her only clue.

At the end of her wait, she once more took her seat to begin the long deceleration period, and it was then that she began to worry in earnest.

Was she flying right into a trap? Why had the aliens sent her there? How could she trust them? Was there an entire Kreete armada waiting for her?

Cache fine-tuned her forward sensors to maximize their range, scouring the area she was headed for with high anxiety. At first there was nothing, but halfway through the decel cycle she started picking up readings of planetoids...lots of them...and they gave off energy signatures that were at best, indiscriminant.

" _Darlile_ , is there anything we can do to get a better reading on those rocks?"

"The debris in this system is rich in fulbritite, and of course, since that material is a natural scattering field, it is nearly impossible to get better resolution. Visual scans will have to suffice there."

"Very well, then...do what you can to check for anything out of the ordinary. I have a bad feeling about this place."

Cache stopped the _Darlile_ a full five-hundred-thousand hoz from the coordinates the alien ship had given her, unwilling to move any closer to those foreign, lifeless bodies of stone.

The first thing she'd noticed that gave her pause was that none of the asteroids were rotating. That alone looked extremely suspicious. As space clutter went, a lack of tumbling action was unnatural and therefore reeked of man-made deceit and danger. The only aspect of the place that allowed her some small solace was the fact that she had arrived far ahead of what that alien ship could accomplish. She would at least have time to acclimate herself to the area before any confrontation could develop.

### Chapter Twelve

### The Plan

The seventh time the group was called to the surface for the introduction to a new "citizen", Ron got his chance. The newcomer was from the planet Jiugon...an alien species that was strictly carnivorous and equipped with razor fangs. They were burly, with thick hair on their entire bodies, and large, black eyes. None were assigned to Ron's work group but he'd seen three of their kind at the sleeping level, on Brome's crew.

Ron drifted off as soon as Draake was distracted, and raced to the smaller transporter. Once there, he boarded the device with two pieces of timber he'd smuggled up the last time he'd needed the med-station. He wedged the first one at the base of the door and leaned it at a 45 degree angle. Next he placed the second piece back across the other, but at a less severe angle. In fact, it was barely long enough to span the width of the chamber, and so ended up at just a five degree slope.

Ron mentally patted himself on the back for the estimation of the length while he carefully climbed onto the upper bridgework. Once there, he could just reach the energy field that held in the pressure. He touched it gingerly but jerked his hand back with a painful wince.

"Shit! That stings!" he cursed, immediately wondering if he was at an impassible barrier. Everything depended on his being able to get outside the shield. He braced himself again and tapped the field with the back of his elbow. It burned like fire against his naked skin, but wasn't completely deadly. The hairs on his arm were singed, but his dense hide had survived.

Ron hastily made the decision to continue, hoping to find a way around that newest impediment in the near future. He took out a piece of drill bit he'd scavenged from one of the older mine shafts and began hammering on it with a good-sized rock. The rock wasn't nearly as efficient as a hammer, but Ron worked like a madman, slamming that crude tool again and again while spinning the drill between every blow. In only a couple of borts he was dripping with sweat, but smiling. Slowly the drill did its work, and before long he had the clear markings of a hole showing. It was agonizingly slow progress, but Ron didn't hesitate, continually pounding away like a giant woodpecker attacking a tree.

When he'd bored half an inch deep though, a small round stone came racing down the outer ramp and ricocheted against the wall behind him. He had set up several of them just inside the edge of shade, hoping at least one would get disturbed and alert him that the others were coming. In a flash, Ron was down from his perch, sweeping the debris pile clear with his foot and tossing the timbers out of the elevator and onto a scrap pile off to the side. That was where old, broken lengths of wood that could no longer be used in the mines were discarded. The jailers cleared it away only once a santari, which was coming up soon, so Ron knew he had to work fast.

He then casually walked over and joined the mass of bodies filing onto the main lift and down to work they all went.

Two days later, a small cave-in trapped Dex in its debris and broke his leg. It was near the end of the day so Ron volunteered to take him up to the med-station. He got ten borts of uninterrupted drilling that day, which gave him another idea.

He waited a couple more days, so as not to look too suspicious, and then raked his arm down a sharp edge of the digging machine. The wound wasn't life-threatening, but it gave him a good reason to go to the med-station and squeezed in another quarter-billot of work with the drill.

The next opportunity he got was when he had to fight again, topside. He had to let his adversary give him enough of a beating to warrant another trip to the med-unit, but he managed to finish the hole to the depth he wanted. It left barely an inch of the drill protruding, and drew a wry smile from Ron.

After that, Ron began scavenging a rope that wouldn't be missed. He then used lighter material to form gathers in its length like the safety straps he'd used back on Earth. Those gathers would tear when sufficient weight was put to them, but would slow the descent of the user enough so he wouldn't be seriously injured when the main rope was fully deployed.

Lastly, Ron needed to find a way for his body to withstand exiting the energy field without either killing him or rendering him unconscious. He happened upon the answer to that purely by chance while assigned to a loathsome detail of emptying a pit full of sludge...a mixture of noxious, oily liquid and ore dust that collected in low points of the tunnels.

When Ron tried to wash it off that evening, Fraidze made a comment that made his heart leap.

"That's a good look for you, Ron," Fraidze joked. "And that coating makes you disruptor-proof!"

"It's what?" Ron returned, his interest fixated instantly.

"Yeah, man! Didn't you know? That dust is almost as good as having an armored suit. Energy weapons can't attach to it...don't affect it. It scatters the particles, or something. Shadze, man, it'd take a level-20 cannon to drop you right now!"

Fraidze just laughed and began his own shower then, leaving Ron thinking.

Ron looked around quickly and saw everyone was busy with their own needs, so he rushed over to the elevator. He scanned for any onlookers and then jumped up inside it, shoving his arm through the barrier and jerking it back quickly. It was unharmed! It didn't even tingle.

Ron smiled again and went back to the shower where it took him almost the entire rest of his free time to wash the muck off. When he was safely in his cell though, gorging on his evening meal, his mind was racing along at a blistering rate. He was ready! All he needed was an accomplice.

The next day, Ron managed to pair himself up with Fraidze, and that's when he began the hard-sell.

"I want to ask you something, Fraidze," he whispered when he was sure no one else could hear. They were in a hollow area a good ways from everyone else, digging and pick-axing the soft rock layer that made up the pocket.

Fraidze got suspicious immediately when he saw how cautious Ron was.

"I don't think I'm going to like this," he said.

"No," Ron chuckled, "probably not."

He then looked long and hard into his friend's eyes, accentuating his determination. "I need someone to help me escape."

Fraidze's shovel-full of ore slammed into the side of the empty hauling wagon with a tremendous booming noise, making them both jump and drawing stares from the pair of workers up the tunnel.

"Are you out of your dragen mind?" he hissed. "You want to get us all killed?"

"No, of course not. But I don't believe that they would either. I think that whole story is just Draake's way of keeping us in line. Don't you see? He doesn't ever have to authenticate it, and who in their right mind would challenge it?"

"Well, there's good reason! I don't want to take a chance on that either! I like my head sitting on my shoulders, not knocked off by that giant!"

"Relax. No one will know you helped me!" Ron insisted. "I just need you to stay outside your cell one night and run the lift. You can be right back there when the doors open and nobody'll think a thing about it."

"What about the food trays? They'll know I was out when my tray doesn't get emptied."

"I have a plan for that. "I'll use a long pole and empty yours and mine from outside, then push them back into their slots and leave the pole in my cell. When your cell door opens, just go in and clean up the mess before anyone sees. They'll think I did it all alone."

Fraidze's mind went round the plan a couple of times, looking for holes. "Yeah...I guess that would work...as long as they don't have alerts on the lifts during our sleep periods."

"They don't seem to. I think they're so sure that we're locked up that there's no point to it. They come down here every three days while we're sleeping and take samples of the water, and I haven't noticed any special protocols used when they go."

"How do you know that?"

"I've been sneaking out of my cell every night for the past santari, looking for ways out of this place...and I've been using the elevator regularly to go up to the surface. So far no one's come looking for me."

Fraidze just stared at him with a blank expression for a while. Finally, "And just how have you been doing that?"

"I get my food tray like I told you, drag it to the door and get the food out, and then put it back. I've been sleeping in a dark niche next to the waterfall. I don't think many of the guys even know it's there. It opens up inside and is about ten feet deep...and it's high enough so no one can see in. Anyway, I think they're checking the water for contaminants...like they're recycling it and need to make sure it hasn't gone bad, or something."

"So you've seen them, huh?" his curiosity suddenly awakened. "What do they look like?"

Ron shook his head. "No, I don't think they're the ones in charge. They act like servants, or maybe they're slaves themselves, and always complain about their job...moping around and lax about their duties."

Fraidze didn't know what to think at that point. Should he try to help Ron, and in turn get a chance of escaping himself? Or should he stay out of it altogether, and leave him to his insane quest alone? He thought about the life he was living, and any hope he could ever do better staying there. Sooner or later he'd run into someone he couldn't beat up on topside, and then this 'safe' decision would be for naught. Would he really want to pass up even the chance to breathe free air again?

He let that race around in his head for a long few moments.

"Okay, Ron. I'm in!"

Ron smiled and nodded. Then they began the last minute preparations.

### Chapter Thirteen

### Slim Chance

Ron went over the plan in his mind one last time as he held the length of rope he'd managed to patch together secretly over the past two weeks. It was gathered at numerous locations that were intended to breakaway one at a time when his weight was dropped upon them. As they gave way, his plunge should be slightly slowed so he wouldn't be subjected to the entire thirty-foot drop he was shooting for. The perfect amount of lashing had been difficult to find, but his will to escape would not be foiled.

Another huge hurdle was the lift they rode in. Through several trials he knew he couldn't simply ride the elevator down and have the rope stop him at his intended level. In fact, it was imperative that the lift not register his weight during movement or else when it lost that load it would sense a problem and stop. That is why he needed an accomplice. Someone had to be in the device to send it down when he was ready.

Ron and Fraidze were presently both at the "topside" level and ready to begin. Fraidze stood anxiously outside the open doorway, his nerves ragged and his heart pounding. He still couldn't believe what his friend was about to try. It was lunacy, pure and simple. In fact, most likely, it was suicide.

Ron took one last deep breath to calm himself and nodded to Fraidze who stepped in as soon as he lifted his weight off the floor.

"Shadze, man," Fraidze groaned, "you stink!"

Ron just smiled, even though he knew his friend was right. The coating of muck he'd covered himself with reeked.

Now Fraidze looked at Ron with a pleading, worried expression. "If this doesn't work, my friend, you are in for a horrible, agonizing death."

"It'll work!" Ron returned, banking everything he had on a single presumption. "Alright...I'm ready when you are."

"Remember...it's at least half a bort before I can get back up here!"

"I know. It'll be fine. Trust me."

"Good luck, Ron," Fraidze said sadly. Then he spoke to the lift. "Level sixty-three."

The customary lita and a half delay felt like a billot to Ron as he mentally paced the interval. He had to be as precise as possible...like a top-fuel drag-racer trying to set a world record. If he was too early, he'd touch the floor and trigger a shut-down of the elevator...which wasn't that bad...they'd just have to start over again. But if he was too late, he risked exposing his body to zero pressure for an addition few litas...time he couldn't afford, and likely wouldn't survive.

As the last quarter of a lita ticked past, Ron released his hold on the rope, and for just an instant, he thought he'd missed his window as the floor of the lift started approaching, but then its distance closure rate slowed dramatically.

Fraidze's eyes flew open wide as he too saw the event unfolding, and then he grinned.

The fall lasted barely two full litas before that homemade rope snapped taught and snatched Ron out of the perfect environment of the elevator and threw him into the inhospitable world of nothingness. He was in the empty shaft...a perfect vacuum of zero pressure.

The air in Ron's lungs tried to expand immediately and he felt the pressure change swell his chest violently. He expected that so he began slowly releasing the air inside like a deep-water free-diver during ascent. He tried to be controlled and smooth, but the next wave of reaction threatened to thwart him. The gaseous molecules in every cell of his body quickly sought escape of their flexible, expanding confines, making his existence uncomfortable to say the least, and then rapidly accelerated to painful. The swelling in his joints stiffened them excruciatingly to the point of a resistance to movement he could hardly tolerate.

His time was running out in a hurry. He'd gambled that the density of his cellular makeup would keep him alive long enough to accomplish one thing...and now he desperately hoped he was right.

The utter pitch black of Ron's surroundings would normally have been another deterrent to his goal, but he'd planned for that also, knowing full well that in a zero atmosphere he'd have to keep his eyes slammed shut to prevent his eye-balls from exploding straightaway. He also hoped the waxy plugs he'd pressed into his ears would keep his eardrums from bursting, but with the amount of pain he was feeling he couldn't tell if that had already happened.

Reaching out, Ron pressed his palm frantically to the place where the door should be, sliding it up, down, and left and right, betting that he would find the trigger he sought. His entire philosophy of this desperate attempt hinged on one do-or-die gamble...safety! He placed his hope of success on the possibility that the beings would value their personnel's lives as much as humans...Earthlings...did. If engineers on Earth had a transport like this one, they would have redundant measures to snap into place...to compensate in the event of some malfunction of the elevator's pressure bubble.

Suddenly he saw a flicker against the insides of his lids. The pain was so intense he could hardly stay conscious, but a moment later he felt a change...pressure was returning. A few more agonizing litas later he opened one eye and peeked out.

The view was greatly distorted, no doubt due to the swollen sphere of his eye warping the lens, but he managed to make out a faint light above and below him. It was such that if the lift were there, the glow from its own luminescence would have made it impossible to detect. Ron smiled inside. He was right. The force fields were creating a chamber that was quickly filling with air. In the dimly lit space, he could see small ports all around the doorway that were releasing the all-vital gas to him and he held on. He'd suspected that this type of system might exist in the event that the lift's own regulatory controls could fail...although he had to admit he wasn't sure it would operate without the elevator sitting stationary at this level.

When the pressure was up enough to allow him to inhale again, he coughed and choked out the last of the breath he'd begun with and sucked in a new one. It felt like breathing fire as the membranes of his lungs processed the request while fighting to function normally against the previous drastic change in pressure. His heart pounded like a drum in his ears too, struggling to move the fluid that had recently started to expand so severely. Ron felt bombarded with sensations...most of which were very unpleasant...and so he hung there gasping at the onslaught and thanking his luck once again at cheating death.

That moment of thanks was extremely fleeting however because an unmistakable odor wafted to his nose. It smelled like burning hemp. The rushing oxygen that was pressurizing the area was mixing the air too quickly for him to pinpoint its origin but he guessed at what it was easily enough and his head whipped upward, emitting several pops as his vertebrae fought the movement.

"Oh no!" Ron grunted, feeling the pain of the stiff joints that were still uncooperative. The newly formed energy field that was saving his life with its pressure was also trying to burn through the rope! The coating he'd slathered on it to protect it from the lift's shield was quickly vaporizing because it was stationary, giving the energy grid time to build up heat at a single point.

He glanced downward to see the lift coming again, but it looked very far away.

"Oh, shit!" he said, realizing another equally harrowing fact; the elevator was hurtling upward at him with great speed.

He and Fraidze had prepared as much as they could, having placed their two bed cushions on the floor to minimize the impact of the returning lift to Ron's stationary figure, but it wouldn't be nearly enough if he fell any distance at all. If the rope snapped first, he was certain he would not survive the collision of his falling body and the rising elevator.

Ron frantically felt for the edge of the door, but he really didn't know if it slid aside, went up, or dropped down, so he tried everything...but nothing worked.

The pressure grew steadily as he fought with the door but could gain no ground. He kept glancing upward at the rope and saw the coating was nearly gone when he could have sworn he heard a tiny chime sound from behind the door.

In the next instant, two things happened simultaneously. A gust of air blew in his face and the rope gave out!

When Ron felt himself falling again, he reached out instinctively, still expecting the solid surface of the door to be blocking his way, but luckily he discovered it was no longer there. Instead, his forearms slammed into a horizontal surface that was hard, cold, and smooth...a man-made floor of some kind. His knees then smacked the glass-smooth wall of the shaft and he slipped down a little more.

Ron then felt a new round of grief as everything lower than his thighs began expanding once more and his pants caught fire. He suddenly realized his legs had fallen below the lower shield and that the energy matrix was burning through his clothes while his legs were decompressing again.

A hasty glance downward also alerted him to another problem...the lift! It was soaring upward rapidly and if it caught him halfway out of the tunnel, and didn't stop at his level, it would surely cut him in half.

Ron kicked off with his toes and lunged upward and into the opening, gripping the door frame with all he had. He was a third the way out!

His next move was phenomenal and would have gained him high marks as a gymnast. As if springing a trap, he snapped his body into a full pike position and then coiled and rolled expertly into the room barely an instant before the elevator streaked past.

Ron unfurled himself immediately to lie flat on his back on the cold stone of the level...his heart racing and his whole body trembling from the ordeal. He'd made it!

That thrilling fact didn't negate his alertness though, and his eyes swiftly jumped from one area to the next as if he were surrounded by a throng of mortal enemies.

The best thing going for him just then was that no one was around. In fact, the place appeared completely deserted. There was only a small amount of light in the room no bigger than an alcove, and it came from tiny luminaries that were arranged along the wall, close to the floor. There were machines in a larger, adjoining room...ones Ron could clearly hear humming away in the tomb-like atmosphere of the place...but they were assuredly running on automatic because he detected not a hint of any person.

Ron lay there a while longer, the effects of his daring trip still ravaging his systems, but then he rolled to his stomach and pressed himself up stiffly.

His joints creaked and popped loudly, fighting every movement, and his sense of balance was heavily skewed, but he soon coaxed himself to a standing position...more or less.

"I guess I know what it's like to get 'the bends' now," Ron groaned.

He stood for a few moments, leaning solidly against the nearest wall until his attitude steadied, and then he struck out. Walking was like a new art as his nerves twitched and fought his wishes, but they settled down to a manageable level after another bort or two.

Soon he was exploring in earnest and quickly mapped out the first hundred feet of his new world. His mind stayed on full alert, wondering if he'd tripped some silent alarm, but after a bit more time, when all stayed quiet, he decided to search out a way to add some light.

It was another few borts of frustration before he thought his quest completely through and remember his time on Rauld.

"Lights...twenty percent," he whispered into the dark, and the room began to brighten.

Ron smiled and swept the place with his eyes. It was clearly a storage facility with goods stacked along the walls at set intervals and only two apparent work stations. He walked over and studied those, but couldn't learn anything without the computers powering up. It took less than a lita for him to decide that they surely would have some kind of warning if he attempted to use them, so he walked back to the door he'd originally entered.

The portal was closed again, but a section of the wall next to it held a flush-mounted pad that was ringed with light. It looked straight forward enough so he pressed his hand against it for a moment and then removed it, standing back a step.

A small orange light appeared and shined above the door for the next few litas. He waited and watched until it turned blue and then the same chime he'd heard earlier sounded and the door slid aside.

There was Fraidze, braced in a stance like he was ready to fight. The short rope that had fallen onto the lift was in his hand and a bewildered look was on his face. Suddenly he smiled.

"It worked?"

"Yes it did," Ron nodded, pulling him into the storage room.

After a few borts of reliving the ordeal, Ron and his pal went to the task of searching the room again. They quickly agreed that this was not the command center, so they proceeded out a far door cautiously.

Ron wondered why there were no alerts going off, but he reasoned that in a facility such as the mine, with no way to access this particular level other than from inside, how could anyone possibly reach this room? That calmed him enough to keep his hopes for escape alive.

The door led to a lengthy hallway with more rooms on either sides of it. They were open to view by means of long windows set into the walls. Ron and Fraidze passed two of those smaller rooms before one caught Ron's eye. Inside, the far wall was literally a huge monitor...a continuous flat screen from one end to the other, and easily ten feet tall. It was set to a low power level, so it was rather dim, but the giant display unit showed an outline-type diagram of a large room with a long row of interconnected lights depicting twenty-one boxes of differing sizes. They were arranged in groups exactly like the cells down below, with each one having a side that was alighted in blue. Ron guessed those blue indicators stood for the doors, and that the color difference meant the doors were secured, or safe.

"Fraidze," he whispered to his friend who was exploring the next room. "I think this is what we want."

Fraidze backtracked to his position and together they entered the room and studied the scene more closely.

"I think you're right. These must be the cells below. And I found two other monitors in the next room that showed the deep tunnels and the branches we've cut into the rock. They must track all our progress from here."

"But why is the station abandoned?" Ron asked.

"I don't know, but I'd guess that with all the workers locked in their cells, what's the point of manning this post? Maybe they just leave while we're sleeping...or maybe it's automated."

Ron shrugged, but couldn't offer a better explanation. He focused back on the monitor he'd found and reached out a finger to a cell he guessed would be his. The blue door he touched flashed orange and a question popped up. "Open? Feed? Exterminate?"

Ron read it and tapped it once more...on the 'Open' insignia.

"Sleep cycle incomplete. Override?"

He tapped the override symbol.

The light flashed orange twice and then settled on white.

Ron smiled before putting it back to closed.

"Okay," he said softly. "At least I know I can get you back in your cell if we need to. No harm done and no one will know...if we need to."

Fraidze had been growing more and more excited about freedom and wanted to argue that he was in this for good or bad, but he was no fool so he kept his options open and merely nodded.

The next side room was smaller and had a much smaller monitor on the wall. It clearly showed the surface dome and Ron read several figures indicating the air's breakdown of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, methane, sulphur, and other such chemicals. It also displayed the water supply, temperature, waste discharge, and a few other things. That small room controlled all the environmental elements of their world.

Ron couldn't think of anything he could do there that would aid their escape, so he and Fraidze moved on.

They proceeded further down the hall the way they were originally heading, still constantly waiting to be ambushed, but everything stayed silent. Their path soon led to a set of double doors which opened into a huge tunnel extending as far as they could see past the door in both directions.

"Do you smell that?" Ron asked with amazement clear in his voice.

"Smell what?"

"Moisture...flowers...trees...grass!"

"What? All I can smell is you! And you still stink!"

Ron smiled and glanced down at himself. He still wore most of the coating he'd used to penetrate the lift's pressure force-field. Fraidze was right. It was awful.

The cavern was just as deserted as the monitoring station, so they drifted out into the expansive tunnel and raced along the wall following Ron's nose. The way was lit by the same glowing rocks used down below but these were much better quality so the route was easy to follow.

An eighth of a hoz later the two escapees both dropped to a walk simultaneously...and then stopped completely. Barely fifty peors away they could see an enormous gate. But that wasn't what had stopped them. Beyond the gate was a clear nighttime sky filled with stars!

They stared dumbstruck at it for a while...each man's mind swirling with thoughts that screamed of false realities and deception...but eventually they continued forward until they reached the barrier, and then they stared some more. The dark land was as lush with trees and every other kind of verdure as any Ron had ever seen...totally opposite the view from inside the dome.

They were looking downhill into a dark valley that showed only the smallest evidence of human habitation with a dozen or so lights at least a hoz away. From that distance, Ron couldn't tell if they were street lights or houses, but they were definitely electrically powered.

"So this world is at least somewhat modernized," Ron silently concluded. "That could be a problem."

They would have communications and tracking devices...possibly aerial surveillance capabilities.

Fraidze was a bit slower to accept what he was seeing, smelling, and hearing. He had been in the mine over a cycle and a half, so the view he took in was more difficult to his time-hardened perspective.

"How can this be?" Fraidze asked while his eyes took in the beauty of the scene. "Topside is so bleak and barren! It's a dead world!"

"They must be using the dome...if it even is a dome...as a projector screen of sorts; showing us only what they want us to see so we don't try to escape. I mean, if we believed we were on a world with a hostile atmosphere and no life, what would be the point of breaking out, right? Getting out of the dome would land you in a place of certain death. You see? It's just another deterrent...to keep the prisoners in line."

"Yeah, I get your meaning...Holy Creator, Ron...look!"

Off to the extreme right, they saw something that set their hearts galloping...a ship!

The alien-looking craft was sleek and flat, somewhat like a stingray, with one section protruding higher than the rest at the far end. Ron guessed that was the front, but he conceded that for all he really knew it could be the engine nacelles. Too, it appeared to have only a single level, unlike most ships that preferred multiple floors to consolidate outer surface space. Designs with less pressurized skin were easier and cheaper to build.

It wasn't a huge vessel, but clearly large enough to go off-world...and even if it wasn't intergalaxian; all Ron needed was to get a signal out...one call. After that, it would only be a matter of time before the _Darlile_ came looking and he would be rescued. Of that fact he was absolutely certain.

"Okay...okay," Ron said, deciding immediately that he was going to commandeer that vessel and didn't even consider failure. He quickly stepped back a few paces to get a better look at the huge gate.

It was a good four inches thick and covered the arched entry of the tunnel completely. Also, it was made of an interwoven iron mesh thicker than his thumb with diamond-shaped openings barely as large as his head. The gate was obviously far beyond his and Fraidze's ability to breach, so he checked for some way to raise the thing.

It was easy to spot two massive chains (one on both left and right sides) leading outwards and down to a pair of enormous cogs mounted in what looked like concrete bunkers. Clearly, those cogs were turned by some powerful method...be it animal or machine...and lifted the gate when needed. He surmised that this was the final safety valve to keep the prisoners away from whoever the jailers were, yet again Ron rationalized it to be such an overkill barrier that no guards were necessary to be posted, since no one was around.

There was another flush-mounted panel on the wall, presumably the operational control of the gate, but it didn't light up when touched. "Smart," Ron smirked. "Probably killed the power from outside."

"Here, give me a hand," Ron then told Fraidze, grasping the lower portion of the mesh.

They both heaved with all their considerable strength, but they may as well have been trying to lift a building. After only a few litas, they gave up the effort, realizing it was a waste of time and energy.

"What now?" Fraidze asked; his face contorted with frantic despair. "Do we wait until someone comes in and then try to make a run for it?"

Ron shook his head. "No...we can't take the chance. Did you notice the floor? The dust is thick, with only a few old tracks showing. For all we know, no one comes here...or maybe only once in a great while. You saw how everything was automated. This whole place might be run from a remote facility. The crews I saw must enter from some entirely different area. No, we need to go now...before they figure out we've escaped."

"Then how? If you saw a cutting torch, you did better than me! I didn't even see anything to use as a pry bar, as if that would even work! Sart, man! We'll never get that gate open!"

Ron's rational side jumped immediately to the answer...but he hesitated to mention it. However, he knew time was against him and every lita he wasted could spell his doom. There was only one solution.

"We need the Benoits," he told Fraidze dejectedly before breaking into a jog back to the control rooms.

Fraidze stood their completely dazed...and then all the blood receded from his face, leaving a pasty visage of absolute panic.

### Chapter Fourteen

### Escape

"Are you out of your mind?" Fraidze hissed at Ron when he'd finally recovered and caught up with his friend. "Draake'll kill us both for even attempting to escape!"

"Yeah...maybe. But it's now or never, the way I see it. I'll just have to see what he says. But I'll get you locked back into your cell so he doesn't suspect you. Then I'll release the..."

"No. Ron...no. There's no way to access this level once we both leave it. One of us will have to man the control up here. Anyhow," he added with a shaky tremor in his deep voice, "I'm with you, man...all the way. And we can't afford to waste the time. We're already well into the sleep cycle."

"All right then, let's pop the doors on all the cells and I'll go down there and explain the situation while you wait here to recall the lift...okay?"

"Deal," Fraidze replied, more than grateful to be somewhere away from the Benoi leader when he found out the news.

They sprinted back to the control room and Fraidze went immediately to the lift portal control and opened the door. It was still waiting just where they'd left it and he breathed a sigh of relief knowing their escapade had so far gone unnoticed. Ron slipped into the long side-room that controlled the cells and tapped the 'open' command on each of them.

Once Ron was headed for the lift though, a problem suddenly popped into Fraidze's mind.

"Wait a bort! If this pad is the only way to call the lift to our level, how will I know when to activate it?"

That was something Ron hadn't thought of, and something that could really cost them time if they couldn't figure it out. There was a chronograph in the control room but Fraidze did not understand the symbols, so it would be useless to even estimate some kind of schedule. And guessing would be tricky at best...most likely costing them more precious time.

"There has to be some way that they can tell when the lift is being used," Ron muttered while racking his brain, "you know...when they want to summon it but don't want anyone already aboard who might see them."

They frantically searched the little alcove until it occurred to Ron that there might be a simpler way.

"What level is the lift on?" he asked to the wall that had the hand pad.

A designation and number suddenly appeared in the center of the pad. It was blue, and it showed their present level, "Maintenance Level 169002".

"Watch that number," he told Fraidze and then he stepped onto the lift.

"It changed to yellow!" Fraidze announced, urging a smile from Ron.

"So yellow indicates that it is occupied. Okay then, that's how you'll know when to call it."

"But now that we know what level this is, can't we just command it to stop here?"

Ron thought for a moment. "Possibly, but it might need some kind of password for this restricted level. I'll try that though on the first ride up."

A few litas later Ron was dropping down the shaft that had so recently nearly killed him, wondering if he hadn't traded one terrible death for another. Draake would not be pleased!

When the elevator door opened at the sleeping quarter's level, it was a scene of deep confusion that Ron stepped out to. Most of the prisoners understood that it was not time for them to be released. They remained inside their cells out of caution, and they were just beginning to speculate about what was happening when he entered the area. They were speaking to one another by calling out around the divider barriers.

Draake and his fellow Benoits were already huddled together out in the center of the cavern and they too looked distressed about the circumstances. Draake spotted Ron striding off the lift and stopped what he was saying instantly, drawing the attention of the two others...and eventually all the inhabitants.

"Where were you?" Draake asked in the language of the Benoi people, his anger and surprise being too much to remember to press the translator. "How did you get onto the lift? How long have you been out of..."

Ron ignored the massive fellow, threw his hands up, and shouted; "Attention! Attention to all my fellow prisoners! I have an announcement!"

The entire group quickly made their way over to where he stood, but not before Draake was in his face.

"What have you done?" he growled, visibly enraged.

Ron again refused to address the mighty leader, and instead spoke so all could hear.

"I have found a way out of this place!" he said triumphantly.

Draake's appearance suddenly took on a whole new mood. He looked like he was about to attack Ron before that statement, but then his expression shifted drastically and froze with more of an astonished one instead.

"The outside world you see when you go topside is fake!"

That caused everyone's mouth to drop open with equal surprise.

"The world we stand on...work in the bowels of...is as normal and hospitable as any I've seen. Our jailors would have us believe that it is a desolate, deadly, barren moon just to keep us from attempting escape. In fact, they are so confident about their deception that the entire facility is run from an automated station near the surface. There is not a single guard or sentry in the place. I have breached their security measures and searched out the control level. It is deserted.

"I can tell you one other thing too. There is a ship just outside...one large enough to take us all off this planet!"

Draake slowly drifted back to his comrades where he and the other Benoits exchanged some unspoken messages but they kept quiet while the rest of the workers burst into a dozen different questions. One stood out more pertinent than the rest.

"If you have done all this, then why are you still here?"

"An excellent question, Hewin. The answer is simple. I need all of your help to get to the ship."

Their expressions immediately returned to skepticism.

"Why?" Draake asked then, finally jumping into the fray.

"There is a tunnel to the outside world...the real outside world...and it is secured with a massive metal gate. It will take the combined efforts of all of us to raise it, if we even can."

"What if we can't?" cried one voice in the third layer of bodies crowding in now.

"We'll all be executed...that's what!" said another.

Ron put his hands up again. "If we hurry, we can try to open it and if we fail, I can put you all back in your cells like nothing happened...I promise! No one is around, so no one would ever know. But if we succeed, we could be off-world by daybreak...before anyone suspects we're gone."

That set off a powder-keg of heated discussion on the mere risk of trying. Some worried it was all a ruse or a trap. Others wondered if Ron was delusional, or mad. Some wanted to know who would fly the ship since none of them even knew what species held them captive, much less what level of technology they had.

A few borts flew by while the arguing intensified, but then a loud, guttural explosion of sound put an abrupt end to it.

"STOOOOOOOOOP!" ordered Draake, making many of the prisoners jump and cower.

Ron was counting on his input to return order to the group. He knew Draake was the only person they all obeyed without question.

Once silence fell across the echo chamber of the cavern, Draake scowled from one face to the next, walking slowly in front of the group. Ron could tell he was stalling for time...trying to rationalize whatever decision he'd come up with. It worked too. He gained himself a full bort to think in total quiet.

"We have only one real decision to make here," he finally said in his controlled, gravelly voice. "Do you want to chance escape, or would you rather live out your lives here?"

He allowed for that to sink in for a few litas before continuing.

"I have been the commander of this work crew for the past two cycles. I have been strict, unyielding, and unforgiving in that period so that we might have peace...and for the most part, barring the challenges of topside, we have. I have done this because I was told I would serve out my indebted time and be allowed to go home if I did. Well, I served the time faithfully. I kept my word, kept order, and kept the work quota high...higher than any other in fact. My reward never came. I am...by my personal calculations of which I am absolutely certain...three santaris past my full sentence.

"As you may have gathered, I receive orders regularly...on notes in my food tray. I have inquired about these very matters every day since my date came and went, and I have received no answers...only more orders. I have considered every conceivable avenue of escape that I could dream up, but have found none plausible enough to even try.

"If this man has done what I could not, then I am grateful to his resourcefulness.

"I am going with Itsu to take my chance at escape. You are all free to do what you will!"

He then turned to his fellow ultras. "What say you, Brome...Al?"

They both smiled hideous, misshapen smiles and simultaneously cracked their enormous knuckles. Then, again as one, they snapped to attention.

"We are with you, Captain!" they said in unison.

Ron could tell it was difficult for Draake to acknowledge another accomplishing what he could not, so he didn't belabor the ill will he felt toward the fellow. After all, now Ron needed him very badly.

They immediately hurried to the lift and began evacuating.

"Use the code 'Maintenance Level 169002'," he told Brome, the first to enter the elevator.

That worked perfectly, but only one of the Benoits could wedge himself into the elevator at a time, and they had no way of utilizing the larger one, so it took nearly half a billot to get everyone up. Fraidze greeted and organized them once they arrived, sending them out to the main tunnel directly.

Draake took charge again once he arrived at the gate. He, Al, and Brome studied the contraption just like Ron had done and tested it with the three of them spread out across its width. It moved, but barely.

When the Centaurs arrived, Draake ordered them to find some kind of support that could be used to hold the gate open when it was lifted...so that they could all get under it safely. They came back dragging four metal crates from one of the storage rooms. They looked sturdy enough to handle the load.

Finally, when the last of the group arrived, Draake assigned duties and spread the workers out along the forty-two-foot span of the barrier.

"Ready...and...HEAVE!" he bellowed.

The massive gate slid upward slowly, as if it were driving some kind of unseen motor. Ron guessed there might be another safety feature that would slow the descent of the heavy gate in case one or both of the chains failed. In any event, the gate moaned and shrieked its complaints, but it moved.

The Centaurs turned loose their holds, kicked the crates under the lip of the gate, and held their breaths.

"DOWN!" Draake ordered to the trembling helpers beside him.

Just as Ron had suspected, the gate slid down slowly, its motion dampened by the same device that they fought to overcome during the lift. At first, the crates looked like they might collapse, the lids of each of them compressing to leave a flat depression in the shape of the gate's lower edge, but they held. It settled to just barely eighteen inches off the rock floor...too tight for the massive Benoits, and for the Centaurs.

"Everyone grab the lower lip!" Draake ordered, not wanting to take the chance of losing the height they'd gained if the boxes did fail. "Ready...and...HEAVE!"

The gate rose again, until it was up to the waist of the Benoits.

The Centaurs repeated their acts and stacked the second set of boxes onto the first while the others strained to hold the massive load.

"Done!" cried Liqwey...the leader of their kind.

The struggling group eased the gate down onto the boxes and then let out a conjoined sigh of relief...but that respite was amazingly short before they were all scooting under the gate, each wanting to get clear before their chance at freedom somehow evaporated.

The three Benoits and Ron were the last to release their holds, all waiting for the others to clear the gate first. When they were safely under, Draake ordered: "RELEASE!" again and they all dropped and rolled out of the prison's compound in a flash.

When at last they stood in the open air, under a blanket of stars brighter than Ron had ever seen, Draake turned to him with genuine humility in his voice.

"Well done, Itsu. We are in your debt."

He then placed his open hand on his chest and bowed his head as a show of respect to the man half his size. The other Benoits copied his gesture immediately.

"Come on guys," Ron told them, downplaying his role considerably. "It was a group effort. Now let's get to that ship!"

The twenty-one escapees sprinted for the ship as one, and their elation at freedom showed in their speed.

Ron took point even though Dex was faster because the ebony warrior's vision in the dark was not nearly as sharp as Ron's, and the Benoits' eyesight was even worse. He pulled up short of the landing pad and held up his hand to stop those behind.

For the next few borts, Ron scanned the surrounding area as thoroughly as he could, while those around him grew immensely anxious.

"What are we waiting for?" one of the fanged people asked, clearly agitated at the delay of their escape.

Draake put his hand up to silence the group and waited as patiently as he could. Time again slipped by agonizingly slowly and the gang grew even more restless.

Draake had seen many versions of warfare...those that were straight forward and brutal as well as those that were subtle and filled with deceit...therefore he stayed calm as the stress mounted.

"What is it, Itsu?" he finally asked.

"I don't...know. Maybe nothing. It's just..."

Draake didn't want to rush him, so he allowed the time.

"This has been altogether too easy," Ron told him flatly.

Fraidze was there too, just a step to the side of Ron. "Too easy?" he asked, completely shocked. "Man, you nearly died a terrible death in the lift shaft...remember. You had to rely on a hand-made rope to keep you from being snapped in half from the fall, and then we had to lift that gargantuan gate! You call that easy?"

Ron had thought about all that already, and the obstacles they'd overcome had been treacherous, but it still seemed a bit convenient. Their alien captors had such a sophisticated, automated facility that had been running for untold cycles without even the rumor that anyone had escaped, yet it was thwarted by him and a group of strangers by figuring out one tiny feature of weakness.

Ron shrugged his shoulders at last and motioned everyone forward toward what looked like a loading ramp off to the right side of the craft. The group gathered at the base of that steep, three-peor-wide metal plank and stared up at a sealed door.

Still there wasn't a hint of anyone around...and that made Ron even more nervous. His head was pivoting nonstop as they went up the ramp to the key-pad at the top.

"Why is this ship unguarded?" he pondered to Fraidze. "On Earth, my homeworld, there'd be three separate layers of security at least!"

However, he had to allow that on Rauld, there was no security at all either.

Ron then returned his focus to the present and stared at the key-pad dumbfounded. Earlier, when he considered stealing the ship, he didn't think about having to bypass a futuristic lock. It wasn't as sophisticated as the one on the _Darlile_ , but it did hold a bank of numbers ten across and ten down. He had absolutely no idea what to do. "How many digits make up the entry code?" he thought. "The combinations could easily run into the millions."

"Let me at it!" said Gorvun, the only Tellurite in the group. "I have a way with these things."

Ron gladly stepped aside to allow him access to the panel. He then began a new search of the ship, still watching every direction for signs of trouble. If they couldn't get inside, they would have to make a run for it before dawn. This was beginning to look dire...even fruitless.

Suddenly Ron spotted something that jarred his memory. Near one of the landing gear struts was a panel that looked an awful lot like the maintenance access panels on the wide-body airliners from Earth. He'd toured an overhaul facility once and saw men using such an avenue to get into the avionics bay, which it turned out, also led to another hatch into the main cabin of the plane.

"No friggin way!" he told himself, but he investigated it anyway. "It can't be that easy!"

Feeling around for a flush-mounted handle, Ron managed to unlatch the door and crawl inside. As soon as he was in, the internal lights sprang to life and gave him the one aid he needed. After that, it was only a matter of a few borts until he was climbing out a plate in the flooring of the ship's galley.

Ron looked around to get his bearings and then set off to the cargo bay.

Outside, Gorvun was trying the hundredth combination, using a systematic numerical algorithm to decipher the code, when the lock suddenly popped open and the fourteen-foot-wide door began retracting into the ceiling.

Everyone was congratulating him with hushed thanks and praise...until they saw Ron standing inside at the inner control panel.

"Anybody want a ride?" Ron asked jubilantly.

They rushed inside in a flash, and before the door had even fully retracted, it was being ordered back down again.

Ron already had the lights running about half power so they could see well enough to examine the ship thoroughly. First they searched it for any crew members who might give them problems or alert the authorities. With their numbers it didn't take long. Once more their fortune held true. It was completely empty.

Ron and Draake went straight to the cockpit while the others performed the search, and began trying to figure out how the vessel operated. Luckily the chip in Ron's brain gave him total access to the language of the owners so it was fairly simple for him to get the internal systems running in short order.

After they felt comfortable about how the ship worked, they needed to secure the passengers. However, they found only seven seats in the cabin. The rest would have to lash themselves down in webbing-style accommodations in the cargo hold...at least during take-off.

Ron strapped into the pilot's seat and waited for Draake to give him the word to go. He familiarized himself with the controls and the preprogrammed flight-paths off world during that time, but the sound of Draake calling specific persons to sit in the cabin caught his ear and he briefly wondered about that.

"Maybe he only wanted people he trusted to be close to the cockpit," Ron decided, brushing the thought away easily.

"We're all set, Itsu!" Draake called forward after a few more borts.

Butterflies swarmed in Ron's stomach as he toggled he start switch. He wondered what resistance they were about to run into...and guessed that he had little firepower aboard to retaliate. After all, this was merely a small cargo ship...not a fighter.

The engines sprang to life right away, and the ship surged from the vibration of those power-plants. Everything was showing blue (the aliens depiction of "all clear"), and Ron was about to take off, when an alarm suddenly started blaring loudly throughout the ship.

"What the hell?" Ron said, scanning the boards quickly. There was a "Danger" sign lit up in the cargo hold, and the outer door was going up. "Son of a bitch!"

Ron tried to release his straps but couldn't. He was pinned in the pilot's seat. "What the..."

"What's going on, Itsu?" Draake called from behind. "I can't get my restraints to let go!"

"I don't know! The cargo bay is under some kind of evacuation order! I'm trying to..."

"TAKE NO FURTHER ACTION!" came a loud command over the intercom, overriding all the other noises, from the claxon to the frantic discussion they were having.

Ron froze where he sat with his thoughts screaming; "A TRAP! IT WAS ALL A FRIGGIN TRAP!" The very next instant found him in a new mode...his eyes blitzing about the cockpit for some sort of weapon. If they were coming for him, they would have to face him this time. There would be no magic transporter to whisk him away and dump him on some foreign rock.

He spotted a small panel off to his left that read; "Emergency Evacuation kit" and twisted around to grab it, but when he reached out, his fingers slipped well off their mark and gripped a bulkhead support instead.

It took another moment or two before Ron realized he'd missed, and so he tried again, but by then, his entire arm went limp and dropped to his side. Then the cockpit began to warp and twist in his vision and he knew he was under the influence of some airborne drug. He quickly held his breath. That did little to quell the affects though and he had to close his eyes to keep the listing sights from making him nauseous.

"Cowards!" he thought with the primal part of his brain while his intellectual section conceded that they'd played him well.

"Is this the team you have selected, Draake?" Ron heard over the same intercom.

"Yes," growled a woozy, grating voice.

"Excellent! We shall allow you to explain it to them when you all wake up."

That was all. Ron was out cold.

### Chapter Fifteen

### Congratulations; You Have Been Selected

Ron came to with his head pounding and his body aching. He was in a cryo-chamber and felt chilled to the bone.

The chamber was a pod-like device that was different than he expected; going off what Earth's science-fiction rendition of such a thing would be. Instead of freezing someone solid, it slowed the person's systems down to a point roughly one-tenth that of normal life. Then it immersed them in a thick fluid that congealed to almost solid when set. That allowed no room for movement, so the inertial forces of the ship's acceleration and deceleration cycles could be greatly accentuated without irreparably harming the individual.

The side effects of such a mode of transport were another matter however, and each species reacted somewhat differently to it. Ron hurt as if he'd been put on a medieval rack and pulled until his joints were ready to tear free, and every thump of his heart reverberated inside his skull with blinding pain.

He feebly struggled to free himself from the pod and found that he was almost too slimy from the melting cryo-gel to do so. The ooze burned his eyes terribly as well, but with a bit more time he managed to sit up and swing his legs out nonetheless. He then found that the floor was at least rough enough to keep him from sliding.

Ron stood up gingerly and attempted to stretch his body like a cat after an extended nap, only to find that any such movement was exceedingly difficult to accomplish.

"How long have I been out?" he wondered, trying to get his bearings through one half-opened eye. He was holding his head with one hand, unconsciously trying to ease the internal pounding.

"Walk forward," said a pleasant, calm voice. He could tell it was automated.

Ron took a few steps as directed; fully expecting what came next since he was standing on a firm, grated flooring material.

"Stop now and close your eyes."

He paused where he was, but watched through half-closed lids as four long rods descended from the ceiling to surround him. When they stopped, he clenched his eyes tight and waited. A moment later a hot, blasting flood of water enveloped him completely and slowly circled his body. That's when he realized he was naked except for a narrow gravity belt...the only thing keeping him stuck to the floor. The shower continued for another bort, until he was gel free, and then it abruptly ceased.

"Oh, come on!" he started to complain, but the vibrations of his voice resonated horribly in his skull, so he relented.

Ron wanted that hot water to turn back on, but instead the rods retracted noiselessly and the voice returned.

"Your quarters are down the hall to your right; fifth door on the left. You will find everything you need there. If you have questions, simply speak and the ship's avatar will do its best to answer them."

The next thing he heard was another pod's latch releasing behind him. He turned to see nine more chambers just like the one he'd been in...three of which were still being utilized. He recognized Dex in the open pod before taking his leave of the sleep-room.

Ron found his way to the assigned quarters without difficulty, and when he got to the door, an oval ring lit up beside it at chest level. It looked just like the pad on the wall that operated the lift, back on Parkanick.

"Place your hand in the ring," said the same voice as before.

Ron did so and was rewarded immediately. "Ron Allison. Identity confirmed."

The door opened silently at that point, sliding to the left, into the wall. Ron didn't hesitate at all, gathering that he wasn't so much a prisoner at this juncture as an unknowing guest.

The room was large and well-appointed with a bed over against the far wall, a couch along the near one, and three chairs around a small table. There was also a personal sanitizer unit off to his right.

"From a prisoner in the dark veins of a mine, to a four-star vacation ship in one small step," Ron said lightly. "Who'd have guessed?"

He wasted no more time and went into the sanitizer to freshen up, finding it quite similar to the ones back on Rauld. He assumed that had something to do with the influence of the Kreete...they having standardized such facilities for humanoids across their wide empire.

After fifteen borts in a nice, pulsing shower, Ron began to notice the effects of the sleep chamber wearing off, and felt more like himself. His head didn't hurt nearly as badly anymore and soon his stomach took over leading the assault to his senses. Clothes were laid out for him, so he got dressed and was on the move quickly.

He then searched his quarters for a food dispenser but didn't find one.

"Where do I go for food?"

"The nutrition center is out the door, left thirty peors to the transporter, and then four levels up."

Ron started to leave, but then his curiosity got the best of him.

"What ship is this?

"The _Shurnoot_."

"What species?"

"Varsegian."

"The Varsegians are controlling this vessel?" he asked with obvious suspicion. He remembered reading about them back on Rauld during his preparations to go to Caron. They were nowhere near advanced enough to have thwarted Cache's safeguards.

"No."

"Then who is?"

"That answer is not authorized."

"Where are we going?"

"To the Neglear Star System...to the planet Ruutarzy."

"Why are we going there?"

"Your team captain will explain everything."

"Team captain? What team?"

"Your team captain will explain everything."

Ron could feel his temper spiking at the lack of information, but he knew it was ridiculous to argue with a machine, so he decided to do something he could control...get some food.

On the way to the mess, he continued attempting to put the pieces of the puzzle together by himself. The dream-like memory of the last words he'd heard uttered before he passed out crept into his thoughts.

"Is this the team you have selected, Draake?" he recalled.

What it meant was a mystery, but he couldn't help but get a bad feeling as the last competition he'd been forced into slipped to the forefront of his mind. The Retribution Games of Caron were anything but pleasant. He gritted his teeth and shook off those recollections before he really got angry. His answers would be coming soon, he presumed.

Ron also knew immediately that the ship was not the one he'd tried to steal. It was enormous...easily ten times the size of the _Darlile_...and was virtually empty, having no sign of anyone other than the men he'd met on Parkanick. That added to the confusion of the situation, but he forced himself to remain calm. For the moment he was safe, and there was no reason to believe that was about to change. He didn't even try to find the cockpit.

"All in good time," he told himself. There were more important things driving him just then.

The transporter opened to a large cafeteria with easily fifty seats in the room, only three of which held anyone. There sat the Benoits. Ron stepped into the mess hall and bristled with anticipation...finding it hard to deny his wish to get answers in a physical manner.

He detoured over to what appeared to be the food dispenser and a pleasant female voice asked what he would like.

"What are my choices?"

A holographic menu snapped into sharp focus right in front of him and he selected a list that would have satiated three men his size.

"Very well," the voice said. "Take a seat and it will be delivered to you immediately."

Ron went over to the table beside the Benoits who were deeply enthralled in a quiet conversation, and sat down. He was trying very hard to stay composed.

"So," he said half-heartedly, "what's this gig all about?"

Draake turned to face him and said, "Wait for the others," in his usual terse manner. He was back to his old self again and no longer demonstrated any debt or gratitude toward Ron.

Ron's temper flared instantly and he leaned over quickly, ready to jump into a battle, but Al Pope stopped him.

"Please, Ron," he said. "It is complicated and will take some time to explain, so we'd rather give it all to the group at once. Good enough?"

Ron cooled quickly, finally feeling he was being treated like a person and not Draake's pet. And it was nice to know that at least one of them knew his real name.

"Fine...thanks," he told the enormous fellow, and sat back. His food arrived just then too, via Cnauts, and that helped distract him even more.

"This entire ship must be running on some kind of remote control, or automated program," he conceded.

At the moment though, he chose to focus on the meal, and half a billot later, he was patting his stomach and watching the rest of the "team" stroll in.

Fraidze walked straight over to where Ron was sitting and plopped down.

"Alright, Ron. What gives?"

"I don't know yet, but we've somehow been grouped together as a team for some mission. The Benoits aren't talking though, till everyone's here."

Fraidze nodded as his eyes caught the mechanical server gliding up to the table. His expression brightened considerably when he saw the food, and then he had little room for more talk with his face stuffed, so Ron just sat by...seemingly cool and unruffled.

Dex followed Fraidze in, and then Bart. Each man thoroughly satiated himself with the magnificent cuisine, and then they all waited for the Benoits' announcement.

At last Draake stood up and began.

"I trust that everyone has a full belly?" he asked, trying to sound light and cheerful...totally out of character.

Everyone just stared blankly back at him.

"Well, I'll get to it then. My explanation of why you all are here requires a brief history lesson. It will help to clarify our mutual situation.

"Fifteen cycles ago, the planet known as Benoi...our homeworld...was attacked by the Kreete Triad. We are not nearly as technologically developed as many places I have seen since, so it was fairly easy for the Kreete to destroy our weapons, our communications, and our defenses.

"As usual, the Kreete were not satisfied with that and saw a real challenge against us in man-to-man battle, so they waged a bloody ground war to further show their superiority. However, that turned out to be a folly they would regret. Although their energy weapons could decimate our conventional ones, they were at a disadvantage when it came down to 'close-contact' warfare, even inside their armored exo-suits. Many of our kind hadn't used archaic weapons in combat in over four centuries, but we learned swordplay quickly, as well as the use of their other primitive ways of battle. We then began overwhelming them easily, taking heavy tolls on their numbers. Casualty losses were somewhere as high a sixty percent on the large-scale skirmishes...that's the Kreete losses now, not ours."

The group of souls listening were duly impressed by that claim, and where they normally would have doubted such statistics from other beings, they didn't doubt Draake. They'd all felt his wrath at one point or another.

"I was a commander of many battles, and witnessed thousands of my countrymen fall to the bloodlust of the 'Lords', but too, I led as tens of thousands of theirs died under our boots. Nevertheless there was no way to win. They just kept coming. Arriving in giant transports, they poured more and more men in on us and pressed the fight without relent until finally we became decimated to the point where we were overrun. It was the darkest time of our existence.

"I was badly wounded and fell unconscious, only to awaken in one of their slave ships. They wouldn't let me die however, and after saving my life they carried me to twenty-eight different worlds where they forced me to fight every imaginable creature or sentient alien they could find. I was collared and shackled and treated like a beast for five cycles before a once-in-a-lifetime chance fell into my future...or so I thought at the time.

"One of my fellow soldiers found a sympathetic soul at his work camp who put him on to a little-known clause that got me freed for a time. This passage in the Kreete by-laws gave me and six of my kinsmen a small window of opportunity to defend our countrymen...our families...our entire world...one last time. Naturally we took it.

"For the following four santaris, I healed and trained. I felt alive again, and ready to wage whatever kind of war the Slags would allow me. How little I knew about them back then.

"If you are unfamiliar with the Kreete, just let me tell you that they claim to be honorable warriors. They claim to find respect for those beings that prove their worth in various competitions...but they do not. They are the worst kind of cowards!"

Draake balled his hand into a fist that vibrated from his anger...anger about some event he'd experienced in his life...and Ron wasn't the only one watching that felt like he did. After a moment of painful recollection, he continued.

"The competition I refer to is called; 'The Games of the Triad'."

Most of the men sitting at the tables were astonished. They'd never met anyone who'd actually been in the games...only heard stories of those who'd died while competing. Ron however, began to get a tightening in his stomach, and his heart started beating faster.

"If you are not familiar with them, the Games are a series of challenges that pit forty one teams of seven souls against the best squad the Triad has to offer. The events are based on physical abilities such as strength, stamina, coordination, agility, and adaptation...as well as mental toughness such as problem-solving, bravery, resourcefulness, and aptitude. They keep technology almost completely out of the competition to put emphasis on the individual, not their level of advancement. But that is where the 'level playing field' stops.

"Well, I obviously survived my time in the Games, but three-quarters of my team did not. And before you wonder how we could possibly be beaten, since we are one of only two species of 'ultra-heavy-worlders' known to exist, let me explain their version of 'fair competition'. They had us all scale a cliff made of rock that could not support our weight. Two of my brethren fell to their death that day. They forced us to swim a deep river on a world where the water provided no buoyancy to our dense structure. Another was lost there. Then we had to fight in the dark against savage creatures on a planet whose night had no moon and a constant cover of clouds too thick for us to see by starlight. I can still clearly recall the screams, as well as the ripping and tearing of flesh. One more man was lost to those terrible fiends.

"They claim that the events prove the most balanced athletes will prevail, and thus the most worthy, but the truth is they control enough of the competitions to guarantee they cannot be beaten."

"What does all this have to do with us?" Ron asked at that point, seeing all too clearly where he was headed.

"The beings that run Parkanick are a race of intellectuals, not fighters, and not athletes...at least not on the scale capable of entering the games. They have recruited us...all of us...to represent them against the Kreete and every other species out there."

"Recruited?" Ron growled out of real anger. "I was shanghaied right out of my own dragen ship...and you helped them! Why would I risk my life for them, or for you?"

"Out of all of them, Ron," Brome interjected, stepping between Draake and him, "you were the one we did not want. We argued about it many times during your stay on Parkanick. The way they took you wasn't right. Everyone else on that dragen world was already a slave in one dreadful colony or another, so bringing them to us was more or less a step up. They had a real chance at a better life. But with you..."

"It was my decision!" Draake broke in tersely. "I am in command and I will accept the responsibility.

"It was over a cycle ago that our sponsor sent word to me about this plan of building a team unlike any other. It would be made up of desperate men who had nothing to lose and who were exceptional at one thing or another. They enlisted me because they knew I had been in the games before, and because I was a leader on my world...someone men would follow.

"I'd heard stories about a wild-man living on a heavy world from some of the newcomer prisoners back then. This untamed fellow was as fierce as a Witsian Saber-cat, had defied the Lords for cycles, and had survived inescapable odds and horrendous beasts for five santaris in the arena before doing the impossible...escaping. And after all that, he'd built an army and defeated the Kreete on a planet they held full control over. It was such a miraculous story that we didn't truly believe it. Who would?

"At any rate, I told our benefactors that if they wanted to have a real chance, then they needed to recruit that man...never seriously imagining they could do it. Nearly a cycle later they told me they had you scheduled for delivery, but your arrival would be 'unconventional'.

"They told me what to expect, so that's how we were ready for you.

"When you arrived though, I was skeptical of you. Your tiny size made me think they had captured the wrong man and passed him off as the great Shartae the Invincible...the Terror of the Retribution Games on Caron.

"I admit the day you arrived, Itsu, you were fairly impressive. You handled yourself admirably against Ckess, especially considering how quickly you had to adjust to the new parameters of Parkanick. I was further impressed when you destroyed one after another of those warriors our jailers kept sending, all larger and better armed than you. But when you refused to kill Moordic, you renewed my doubts. I couldn't believe the beast-man of the arena had qualms about killing some pathetic slave.

"Fighting you that day was what convinced me they had the right man! You have astounding combat abilities that put you at a level far higher than most humanoid men with more formidable dimensions. My confidence in what our rulers were trying to accomplish grew considerably that day. I could finally see their plan had some merit.

"However, we were only one of several potential teams they were building, and they wanted the best, so I was told to wait for instructions.

"Your escape from their prison facility was the deciding factor. They were amazed by your intelligence and adaptability. In a large part, it is you who got us to this point. Now we have the slim chance we needed."

"That's all very interesting," Dex blurted while Ron stewed over what Draake had just said, "but how can it be that we can be a team for someone we've never met? Don't you have to all belong to the same world?"

"No. The laws are clear. Anyone can represent any other group. It's just that no one in their right minds would. I mean, who'd risk their lives, and make whatever sacrifice is necessary to win for someone else. That's where we come in. Even though we are slaves of the Triad, we can earn our freedom, and that of our families, if we can win."

The discussion went on for a while longer as Ron sat and steamed. What sick, twisted, gutless creatures had the nerve to kidnap him and force him into a death-match contest to save their own sorry asses? It fleetingly reminded him of how he was stolen from Earth by the Rauldens to begin with, but that had at least been proven to be some phenomenal accident of fate. This was totally different. He'd been hunted like an animal. This was pure and simple disregard for his right to live his own life...and to make the choices of how and when to gamble with that life on his own accord. He was furious, and the more he thought about the time he was missing with Josy and Sheyah and Cache, the madder he got. Finally, while the others were in an excited discussion about the upcoming challenge, Ron jumped to his feet and stormed out of the room.

That brought on a long silence in the mess hall as each member of the newly formed team silently speculated about how Ron would perform while knowing the situation of his abduction. They all obviously feared a lackluster commitment might seriously endanger the entire enterprise, but also, they knew that nothing any of them might say would sway his outlook. They would just have to wait and see.

Ron entered his quarters with a single objective on his mind. For once he would look out for himself...for his own future. He would do what he could to survive and let the others risk their lives for those cowards. If that was the way their mystery jailers conducted themselves, then as far as he was concerned, they could stay under the control of the Triad!

After all, once the Games began, his presence would be announced across the cosmos, and he was certain Cache would find him. After that, it was only a matter of time. She would move heaven and Earth to rescue him. Of that, he was beyond certain!

Ron paced back and forth a dozen times to the far wall of his room, and then across to the door, his hands aching to hold the black sword again...to face those low-lifes in battle. They wanted a warrior? He would be happy to show them one!

Then on his next pass, as he spun about to head for the door again, an odd chime sounded. At first he stopped and looked about, but then quickly deduced someone was at the door. He felt fairly sure it was one of his new "teammates" coming to try and talk him into joining them...probably Fraidze.

"Fuck off!" he bellowed, but the proximity sensor chimed again. Whoever it was wasn't leaving so easily.

With a snarl on his lips, Ron gripped the handle and flung the door open, ready to berate whatever unlucky fool had interrupted his sulking. But when he saw who it was, he froze instantly and stood as still as stone.

### Chapter Sixteen

### Down the Rabbit Hole

Over the following four dactrais since she'd entered the strange asteroid field, Cache did everything she could to help her automated assistant screen hundreds of the floating spheroids. She found nothing to indicate any threat, yet she held to her concerns. She kept the _Darlile_ 's engines running during the entire time too, with express orders to blast away at the first sign of trouble...no matter where she was inside the ship. She had designed several emergency stations where she could simply throw her body into a padded capsule and it would inflate around her to help minimize the inertial stresses of acceleration to keep her alive during an impromptu escape.

It wasn't until late that evening that the _Darlile_ 's warning chimes rang throughout the cabin.

Cache was in the middle of her stretching exercises, preparing to begin a weapon's training regimen, when her head snapped up with a predetermined question.

"Is it the ship we want?"

"Yes."

She then sprang from a full split position to running flat out down the hallway in an instant, reaching the cockpit barely five litas later. She negotiated the slim confines of the cockpit with one twisting move and plopped into her seat quicker than even she would have thought possible.

"Show me!" she ordered as she triggered the multiple safety harnesses into place.

The forward viewer instantly showed a yellow circle off in the far right, upper quadrant. The circle then moved to the center and expanded until she could make out the alien ship clearly.

"So they didn't take a direct route to get here," she mused as she watched the vessel, mentally calculating the level of technology it took to accomplish such maneuvers with no human interaction.

She had flown some fourteen-hundred and thirty light cycles to get there and from the angle of the incoming ship, it had made at least two sharp turns on its round-about approach. Insanely complicated adjustments to compensate for the drift of stars and their solar systems had to be absolutely precise, and the gravitational effects of everything from nebulas' dust to wayward comets had to be analyzed and accounted for. Reentry into tangible space was rife with possible dangers that could destroy a vessel in an instant...or one could drop out of transoptic speed too close to a planet to slow down enough to avoid it.

Space travel was not for the timid...or the stupid.

"No wonder it took them so long to arrive," was all she said, although she was very impressed with their abilities.

Cache blasted that ship with every sensor the _Darlile_ possessed, searching for any change in its status from when she'd last seen it. No one was aboard the craft. The life support system was still turned off.

The alien vessel tore into the debris cluster with mind-blowing velocity, braking hard enough to crush any known life form if one had been inside it, and came to a relative stop at the exact center of the cluster. Once there, it turned toward the direction that the cluster was moving and matched its speed perfectly...seeming to hang there, dead in space.

Cache continued to monitor the rocky bodies closely for the next few billots, but then she had to consider that the longer she stayed there, the more likely reinforcements could arrive. It was quite a conundrum.

At last she decided to take a chance and move forward.

"Keep watch on as many of those rocks as you can," she told the avatar, not really considering what she was saying.

"I can watch them all," the ship replied.

"Good."

Cache accelerated gently, still waiting for some horrible trap to spring to life, but when she reached her goal and it didn't, she breathed a little easier. She parked the _Darlile_ barely a hundred peors from the alien ship and continued to scan it. It was completely lifeless.

"Now what?" she thought out loud.

The data sphere was somewhere in the foreign ship, but with no one to talk to, the only way to retrieve it would be to leave the safety of the _Darlile_ and go over there on a hover-sled modified for outer-space zero-g maneuvering. That was not a proposition she was easily agreeable to. The only thing was, that seemed to be the only avenue.

With another low, yet feminine growl issuing from her lips, Cache slipped out of her pilot's seat and hurried to the aft end of the main cabin section. There she initiated the start-up sequence to a special compartment that looked like a life-boat pod. Simultaneously, she shed her flight suit for a heavier version made for deep-space excursions.

The dark room, no larger than a small closet, whirred to life quickly and lights flooded the space before its transparent entry door slid silently to the side.

Cache stepped in and climbed aboard a scooter that Ron would have likened to a jet-ski. It was large enough for two passengers and once she took the forward-most position, a shell slowly closed over her, sealing her off from the _Darlile_ completely. Cache's fingers danced across the control panel of the small craft and a few litas later it lifted off its mooring clamps as the outer hull of the black ship opened up to the environs of deep space.

"Any change in the status of the ship, or the surroundings?" she asked her mechanical partner.

"None...although there is little..."

"I know...I know. Your sensors are all scrambled because of those planetoids."

She took a deep breath and then gripped the console of her tiny craft. "This is a bad idea," she mumbled to herself before gunning the throttle.

As she sped away out into the vacuum of space, Cache's heart was running faster than the scooter's engine. She looked around so much, her head seemed to be on a swivel. The shell that surrounded her and kept her alive and comfortable was as clear as the air inside her ship, and that just added to the anxiety of the desolate, black, empty void of space.

" _Darlile_ , can you still hear me?" she asked nervously. She couldn't really understand the level of her apprehension, but that was probably because she had never been so completely alone and vulnerable in her life.

"Yes, perfectly," the ship replied, easing her rising angst a little.

Cache approached the alien ship swiftly and began to concentrate her efforts toward entry of the vessel instead of her personal safety, and that calmed her a great deal. The _Darlile_ had scanned the foreign ship completely during their getaway from the Kreete and located a probable entry point that she was making for.

The door was large enough for a typical five-person shuttle, so her little scooter would fit easily. She glided her tiny transport up next to what appeared to be a control panel and examined it closely. It was nothing like the cargo compartment doors on the Triad's fleet, and the symbols on it were completely foreign.

" _Darlile_ , what can you tell me about this?" she asked while relaying a live picture of the terminal.

"It appears to be a ten-thousand-bit encrypted key-pad...undoubtedly having a rotating security key."

"Can you decrypt it?"

"Yes."

"How long?"

"No longer than thirty billots."

"Great!" she thought. "Well, you might as well..."

Suddenly, when the scooter got within arm's length of the alien ship, the door shuttled inboard a foot and then slid upward, out of the way.

Cache stopped her little craft in a blink...immediately sensing a trap. The opening stood black and ominous for a few litas, but then the interior lights snapped into operation and lit the cavern with bright white light.

Cache held her ground for a few more borts, skeptical of the ease of entry.

"Why would they go through so much to escape, and then turn around and invite her in?"

Once more, time was a huge motivator, and so she relented and cast caution aside. She negotiated the scooter inside the ship and watched the door seal off behind her. After that, she monitored the compartment to see the atmosphere return before opening her protective bubble and stepping out onto the compartment floor.

The magnetic gravity setting that pulled at her suit was light...much more so than the _Darlile_ which was set to mimic Caron's pull...and she began to explore from there.

The interior seemed oddly arranged to her. Working her way through the cabin, she noticed the chairs were much lower than she was used to. Even at her relatively diminutive size, the seats and work surfaces were much too short to utilize comfortably.

Cache slowly worked her way to the forward end of the ship, assuming that would be where the command station would lie. It was quite cold inside, but the thermal systems were quickly restoring heat to the hard-frozen metal surfaces. As it was though, she felt grateful she'd thought ahead enough to wear appropriate layers.

The craft was not what she expected either. It seemed to have practically nothing inside it...as if it had been put in service before it was completely outfitted. Too, it was extremely large for a crew of only six, leading her to believe that it was either stolen and partially gutted for profit, or it was intentionally lightened for speed. With what she knew about the aliens, she suspected the latter.

There was absolutely nothing showing a hint of who the owners were in the entire ship. It was so bleak and sterile that a new scenario eventually crept into her thoughts.

"Maybe these beings are operating covertly within the Triad and so afraid of being found out that they go to these lengths to keep the Kreete from retaliating against their homeworld...their people."

It was a bit too early though to begin to feel any compassion or sympathy to their plight however. They had thwarted her safety systems, hijacked her transporter, and taken Ron Allison right out of her beloved super-ship. She wanted answers and she wanted pay-back!

After negotiating the entire six hundred peors of ship-board hallways, Cache finally found what she'd been searching for. She stepped into the large, hexagonal command center of the ship and took a cautious look around.

The starkness of the rest of the craft was mimicked there as well, with barebones seating and drab, metal framework all about. The only thing that looked current with the time's technology was the forward station. It was state-of-the-art hardware that sat their shining away with a blinking message on the center viewer.

In her native Raulden language it said, "Touch Here".

Cache knew there was no one aboard...knew that the _Darlile_ was standing guard outside...and knew that she had to continue with this request...but still she hesitated. Something was eating away at her. The hair on her neck stood on end and she scanned the room yet again as if expecting it to burst forth enemy assailants to attack her.

She took a deep breath and reached her small hand out...her fingers shaking with trepidation.

The screen was cold to her warm hand, but she pressed it firmly down even so.

There were a few litas of eerie, dead silence while she waited breathlessly for something to happen...but when it did, she wasn't ready for it.

The alert from the _Darlile_ chimed so loudly it made Cache jump, jerking her hand from the alien screen to settle into a defensive posture. Her index finger touched her com-link.

"What is it? What happened?"

"The engines just stopped," the ship said calmly.

"Stopped? How? There has to be enough particles in this debris field to feed them!"

"Some kind of energy pulse initiated a few litas ago and it is blocking any fuel from reaching the intakes."

"Blocking? But how could anyone know how to...?" her words died in her throat as she remembered how well the aliens knew her defenses; her weaknesses...and they had a great deal of information about the ship as well.

"So I was right! This is a trap...one specifically designed for us!"

She didn't bother berating herself for being lead to such a conclusion. She had weighed the risks and taken her chances. Now she would have to think her way out of this mess.

Her first concrete conclusion was that she needed to get back to her own ship.

Cache turned to retrace her steps, but the cockpit door slid down abruptly.

"Wait, Cache Kuar!" ordered the alien ship's avatar.

She spun about instantly with a disruptor pistol in each hand, sweeping the small space with a keen eye and her jaw set tight. There was no one there of course, as she already knew, but that didn't stop her from being ready.

"What do you want with me?" she asked in a highly agitated voice.

"We wish to explain what is happening...why we did what we did."

Cache stood there as still as stone. "Well, I am listening."

"We are sorry but the time is not yet right. We need you to be patient."

"PATIENT?" she screamed, leaning down to grasp the edge of the console. It seemed obvious to her that the ship was no longer on a preprogrammed agenda. Someone was speaking to her indirectly through the ship's com.

"You attack my ship and threaten the life of my friend, then use stolen information to hack my transport and abduct him, destroy the relay, and retreat without a single word. Now you want me to be patient?"

"Most of what you say is true. We know a great deal about you and Ron Allison. We know he is much more to you than your friend, Cache, and we are truly sorry things had to be done this way, but we did not destroy your relay...you did."

Cache's face flushed deeply red as she realized just how true their words were. She felt angry and violated having such personal issues out for discussion.

"If you know me so intimately, then you also know that I do not do 'patient' well."

With that said she whirled about and fired at the mid-point of the door.

The highly concentrated plasma rounds struck the sturdy metal barrier with a bright flash of charged energy, but it held. The door was designed to resist such attacks...and did exactly that for the initial contact...but Cache Kuar was a genius at thwarting common safeguards. The metal door soon began to glow white as the unique Raulden blend of energy maintained its onslaught of disrupting the atomic charges that held the door's atoms together, and after two more litas it gave way. The center two thirds of the barrier exploded with a thundering boom as billions of atoms accelerated away at hypersonic speed.

Cache knew what would happen and had already taken cover behind a supporting bulkhead.

Before the debris had finished ricocheting off the walls, she was on the move. She dove through the opening like a champion gymnast and tumbled expertly to pop up to her feet at a dead sprint.

Down a long hallway she flew before being knocked off her feet by a sudden jolt.

"What the...?" she said when she'd righted herself again.

The structure beneath her feet was trembling with a high frequency vibration.

" _Darlile_...what is happening?"

"The alien craft you are on has ignited its engines. It is moving away."

Cache ground her teeth together and headed back to the cockpit. With the _Darlile_ 's intakes starved for fuel, it was trapped and could not follow. She had to admit she was at the mercy of the alien group.

She stomped back through the destroyed door and glared at the console panel that was still lit.

"Fine!" she said in a harsh tone. "I will listen to your story."

With that, Cache plopped down into one of the metal chairs next to the screen and waited...her mind racing with questions and anger still hot on her cheeks. In fact, the cold steel of the seat felt good to her overly heated body and helped cool her temper.

The engines shut down again, and the silence returned for a moment.

"The time is not yet right, I am afraid," the voice on the com-unit said. "However, you will be perfectly safe here on this ship until it is."

"Wait a bort! I cannot stay on this vessel! I have to return to my own. I have no food or water, and..."

"That is unacceptable," the voice interrupted. "We cannot allow you to regain your ship until you have seen what we need you to see. However, we know how intelligent you are and so we also know you will find a way to escape. You must not leave. Please stay!"

Cache could hear the desperation in the tone of the speaker and her intuition told her there was much more to what was going on than she knew. That inner drive told her to listen and observe...so that is what she began to focus on.

"There are provisions in this craft for you, as well as accommodations for your physical needs. Also, we have recovered the data-sphere from our intelligence ship. You may access it fully at this screen. It will tell you everything we know about you and your technology."

"All right," she said calmly, belying her inner turmoil. "But you have to understand that the Kreete who were chasing us will eventually find this place. I know their methods and they are undoubtedly searching for us by process of elimination. It will not take them..."

"We do not fear the Kreete here. They stay away from this section of space...afraid of exploring blindly. Their sensors are totally useless and they have to use visuals. Your ship will be almost completely invisible, and ours is now protected by an impressive light-bending technology.

"Please...be patient. Everything will make sense soon."

Cache relented, but only so she might have a chance to gain more insight into the mystery race. She inspected the accommodations and tested the supplies they had provided, finding their knowledge of her own particular needs to be quite vast.

For the next two dactrais, Cache combed through the data the aliens had gleaned from her beloved ship's computer, keeping herself busy, but still feeling the pressing need of urgency with every passing billot.

At last the inevitable happened though. The Kreete arrived just like she'd predicted.

The _Darlile_ alerted her to their presence immediately, and she had the alien ship's avatar show it on the monitor she'd been using.

At first it was only a light frigate. It used the customary grid pattern and immediately commenced sweeping the area with its sensors. She expected it to leave when it had completed its dactrai long inspection, but instead, another ship slid into the area, and then another and another, until an entire Dreadnaught lay all about them.

"Apparently the Kreete have decided to chance their fears," Cache grumbled.

The _Darlile_ had destroyed such a force once before...one larger in fact...but that was with the help of the Rauldens on her side. And that was with Ron Allison at the controls. This looked very ominous to her, especially with her being locked away from her war ship.

"We cannot just sit here and wait!" Cache finally shouted to the empty cockpit. "You must release me!"

There was an extended pause of total silence before Cache shattered the eerie quiet with a long scream of pure frustration.

Her high-pitched wail echoed down the endless empty hallways for several litas.

"That does it!" she growled. "There has to be some way out of..."

"Stand by!" said the console suddenly, in a loud voice.

"Creator above!" she exclaimed, jumping a full peor from where she'd stood. She hadn't realized how accustomed to the quiet she'd become.

"Watch the viewer," the voice added sternly.

Cache was nearly beside herself with restlessness by then and stared at the small screen with a deep frown on her brow. It was the scene of an unknown place, possibly the inside of a different ship. She could make out what appeared to be some supporting structure all around the vantage point she was seeing through. The recording image was moving up and down and in a slightly rocking fashion so she had to assume the camera was mounted to a person. The person was making their way down a narrow aisle that ended at an odd-looking door. It was large and rectangular, and was decorated quite extensively with ornate patterns and symbols she didn't understand.

The movement of the camera ceased at the door before an electronic chime rang out.

Cache could clearly tell that the sound came from the other side of the portal, and she watched unblinking as a muffled reply returned. The chime repeated a few litas before the sound of a heavy latch being thrown followed, and then...

"Uuhhhh," she gasped as the strange door opened and a huge, looming figure appeared on the screen.

It was Ron Allison.

### Chapter Seventeen

### Jazz

Ron just stared at the person before him.

There in the doorway was a being like he'd never seen before, and almost couldn't believe. The newcomer appeared female and stood barely four feet tall, with long dark hair that was a cascade of ringlets down to her waist. Her eyes were the color of a new penny, larger than a typical humanoid's by at least half, and her nose was overly petite. At first Ron didn't notice a mouth because her lips were so slim and tightly pressed together...out of fear no doubt, considering her size deficiency compared to Ron's...but it also appeared too tiny for her face.

Ron scanned her physique and thought she might be a child because the rest of her features were small as well, appearing to be possibly eleven years old...in Earth years. She wore a snug fitting, dark blue dress which was knee-length, and black sandals that laced up her calves. There was a round, gold medallion hanging from a fine silver chain around her neck and every one of her fingers bore a silver ring.

The two stood staring at one another for almost a full bort before the little woman finally spoke.

"I am Jazzimeridon. I am from the planet Ordice. You may call me Jazz."

Ron didn't know what to make of her, but having greeted many aliens from several different planets, he chose to be open and non-threatening. After all, no matter the predicament, he was still an ambassador for the Raulden people.

"Hello. I am Ron Allison, from the planet..."

"Earth!" she finished for him.

Ron's brain quickly blitzed across his entire time on Parkanick and confirmed he'd never told anyone what planet he was from. His defensive side instantly went on alert, as did his eyes and ears, and even his nose. He could detect no one else close by.

"How do you know...?"

"I am from the race who abducted you, Ron. I represent the Ordicean people."

Ron's face flushed beet red and his fingers clenched together into steely fists automatically. Here was the culprit who'd derailed his life for hers. Here stood the reason he was forced into peril of unimaginable magnitude. Here stood the person who felt their plight was more important than him being with his child!

He stared at the tiny woman for another half bort before gathering his thoughts enough to speak.

"Why?" was all he asked. It seemed enough.

"Will you listen?"

Ron ground his teeth together hard, the muscles in his jaws standing out starkly.

"It appears I have little choice in the matter."

"That is not what I asked, Ron. Will you _listen_?"

Ron fought against his welling anger and struggled mightily to control himself. "I will."

"Thank you. Please, may we sit?"

Ron held out his hand, offering one of the chairs to his left. He then took a seat across the small table from his tiny guest. She showed signs of distress when she walked those few steps, and then sat quickly, as if nearly exhausted.

"First, let me thank you for not killing me immediately. After getting to know your dossier, I guessed I had a thirty percent chance of living through that first statement. It pleases me that you are not the mindless assassin the Kreete make you out to be."

Ron didn't smile or blink. He took in every movement, every nuance of Jazz's body language. He was an excellent judge of people's sincerity and motivation, no matter what species they were.

"I am here to plead with you to accept the terms of Draake's proposal. The team needs you more desperately than they know...even the ones who do not already gravitate toward your guidance."

"You call that bunch of outcasts a team?" Ron growled.

"Maybe not just yet, but with you to bind them together, then possibly. You are a natural leader, a tremendous athlete, an unparalleled opportunist, and the most lethal fighting machine ever unleashed in the Kreete domain. If any team has ever truly stood a shred of chance against the Kreete's elite squad, it is this one."

"Why?" he repeated once more. That single word, again, seemed enough.

Jazz stared back at his gleaming, hardened gray eyes. Hers softened minutely, the way a woman's always does when she feels profoundly emotional about something.

"I will not sit here and try to defend what was done to you...what 'my people' have done to you. It was cruel and harsh and deceitful and unforgivable."

Ron didn't blink.

"I am here to make you a proposal...and in turn, offer you an explanation.

"The proposal is this: We will provide you whatever you need to help and support you during the games...within the guidelines of the Triad's strict laws...and we promise that you are completely free upon their conclusion, even if you do not win."

Ron gave not a hint to what he was thinking, but it was far from trusting.

"This ship is a luxury passenger vessel that has every amenity you could want...other than your family's presence...and for that, I am...that is...'we'...are truly apologetic. I don't expect you to believe me, but it is true.

"This vessel is totally at the team's disposal and is programmed to deliver you to every venue on time. There are training facilities on multiple levels, for various gravitational requirements, and enough food stores for you all to live an entire cycle. Now that doesn't mean you are prisoners for a cycle. I only want you to know that you may indulge as much as you care to without worry or rationing.

"This ship cannot land on planets, so you will be shuttled to touchdowns via the yacht the team's quarters are in. It is well equipped to meet your needs while planet-side and even has a state of the art medical facility like the one on Parkanick, for any unfortunate mishaps during competition. And it can accommodate all seven of you at the same time."

Ron still did not move...not even a twitch.

"Now, for the explanation.

"We are a technologically advanced race of humanoids that have a tremendous talent. That rare aptitude however, is also a curse. You see, we are graced with the ability to find ways around others' technology. We improve, unravel, disarm, bypass, and sometimes completely obliterate systems no one else can even understand. We have no explanation for our gift other than 'it is what we are good at'.

"The Kreete have a gift as well. It is exploitation. Exploitation through fear, through pain, through intimidation, torture, and so many other ways I am sure you are more familiar with than I.

"The Kreete came to our world a few cycles ago with a fleet of warships. As you might imagine by my stature...I am a fully grown Ordicean, by the way...we stood little chance against them. Even with an impressively sophisticated and powerful defense network, it took less than a santari to destroy our military and take control.

"Our technology is advanced...not so much as the Rauldens'...but close enough. In fact, once the Kreete overthrew our government and learned exactly how gifted we were, they immediately demanded we get started on a way to circumvent the Raulden Planetary Shield!"

Ron couldn't restrain his emotions at that. His eyes narrowed and his large hands gripped the edge of the table until it creaked under the mounting pressure.

"Tell me you have failed!" he ordered in a deep, growling voice...his need to vent his anger was skyrocketing.

"So far, we have," Jazz acknowledged. "But believe me, it is only a matter of time."

Ron held himself in check...barely.

"Our scientists do not want to find it, Ron. In fact, we want one of our own, and I would gladly trade my life for a single day on Rauld explaining our predicament! However, communication from our planet is not viable, and our ships are tightly regulated and always monitored, so even though we have been well within range of Rauld to study the shield, pleading with them for help has been impossible. The best we could accomplish was to procure some alien crafts, modify them enough so they could get close to your black ship...the _Darlile_...and study it. Later on, we broke into the transporter relay station and found a way around the Starflex Portal's safety features. We then stole the link from them...and...well...the rest you know.

"We already had a plan for this team under development, and it seemed the only foreseeable way to escape the Kreete's rule without Rauld's direct assistance, which we couldn't get. The tricky part is that Draake's team members need to rely on one another completely. They need to know each other's strengths and weaknesses and function well together. That's why they were all put on Parkanick. That is why you were brought there as well.

"You couldn't simply be an addition, you see? They wouldn't trust you, and you wouldn't trust them."

"Why didn't you just leave a message in the _Darlile's_ computer, explaining your situation? The Rauldens would have..."

"Been skeptical, cautious, even determined to avoid us and focus on improving their defenses. It is what any rational people would do. By the time they verified our story and came up with a plan, our scientists may have already dismantled their shield."

"You could have come to me directly, instead of dropping me on that planet the way you did. I would have listened then too. I might even have volunteered to go through with..."

"It wouldn't have been genuine! Draake and the others are just as wary as you are...not quite as perceptive perhaps...but they would have known something was up."

"What about the other teams you've built? Are they..."

"There are no other teams. We only told Draake that to motivate him toward our goal."

"So this is a one-shot, do or die gamble for you?"

"Yes...and for you too, I'm afraid. If we...that is, the Ordiceans...succeed in the mission the Kreete have demanded of us, Rauld and Caron are both lost. All those who you love will be lost, as will the only real hope for the planets yet held in the grip of the Triad.

"The _Darlile_ is an impressive weapon...extremely so actually...but still, it is only one ship, and sooner or later, even it will fall without a safe harbor to land."

Ron took a few moments to contemplate that statement.

"What about this endeavor? How are you keeping it from the Kreete?"

"Using the Parkanick facility was a simple, yet truly ingenious tactic. They rarely oversee such places, and don't much care what we do with our prisoners as long as the mining colony stays profitable. This ship was purchased surreptitiously through an untraceable list of contacts, and modified by a group of our dissident network. When it arrives at the games, no one will suspect who it represents."

"You mean the Kreete don't know you have a team?"

"No, and it needs to stay that way until the final competition is complete! Only then are we required to announce ourselves. You can tell no one...not even Draake!"

"Then Draake really doesn't know who he works for?"

"No. You are the only one. We have studied you in depth. You held your tongue in the dungeons of Huinrag, and your devotion to your endeavors has been unprecedented. That is the only reason we trust you now. We know of Cache's and your mission to aid the planets who wish to be free of the Kreete, and we vow to help you in any way we can in the future...if we have one.

"That is my story, Ron Allison. It is the truth. I swear it on my life.

"Now, after all you have endured. After all we have done to you. After all we have put your loved ones through...will you help us?"

Ron stared long and hard at Jazzimeridon, and searched his soul. If he believed her story, he knew his answer was easy. He needed to do anything he could to stop the Kreete from breaching the Raulden defense net...and that of Caron as well. The question was...could he trust her? Could he take her word without a shred of proof?

"How could your ships catch the _Darlile_?"

"They weren't ours. They were robotic drones modified from prototype Neefretic attack vessels we were studying. Your ability to withstand such inertial forces was far greater than we had anticipated however. To match you acceleration rate, their engines were operating at two-hundred and fifty percent over the safeguard limits."

"What size planet are you from?" he asked her.

"It is a 7.6 world."

"Then this visit must be difficult for you, the gravitational setting of this level being for a 10.2 dweller."

He had been studying her carefully during their talk and could see the pain registering in her eyes...the difficulty she was having staying upright... even breathing.

"It doesn't matter...but yes."

"You know I could kill you without much effort and still feel totally justified in doing so?"

"Yes."

"Did you volunteer to come to me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"We are desperate, and you are our only hope."

Ron took one last, long gaze into Jazz's copper-colored eyes.

"Tell your people, they have my support!"

### Chapter Eighteen

### Repercussions and Respect

"Ron!" Cache called out, rushing forward until the crystalline panel was barely inches away from her nose.

"He cannot hear you, but if you listen you can hear what is said between our operative and him."

Cache watched with swirling emotions. She was so elated that he was alive and apparently well, but too, she was distraught that he was still out of contact with her...out of reach of her yearning fingers. She wanted so desperately to hold him again. Her hand lifted absentmindedly from its death grip on the console and she touched the screen gently, the blood from her racing heart pounding in her ears.

But then she realized that someone was speaking, and that she was missing it. Instantly she focused on that voice, on what was transpiring between her beloved and this stranger.

There was no image of the alien, only of Ron, but he seemed to be talking right to the camera. Cache immediately concluded that the com unit was part of the speaker's attire. The unseen person had a light, high voice which sounded distinctly feminine...although more like a child's than an adult...and from the way Ron was looking downward to address her, she undoubtedly was small of stature.

Cache watched while barely breathing, and when the conversation was over, and the alien woman...Jazz...exited Ron's room and closed the door, the screen went dark again.

"You see?" said the previous voice she'd grown familiar with. "He has agreed to help us."

She took into account the explanation the aliens had put forth, and the tale had worthy merit, but her pride was still wounded badly from their treachery and subterfuge. Too, she was fraught with anxiety and wanted desperately to warn Rauld of their clandestine project to circumvent the planet's protection. Therefore she decided instantly that it would take more than their plight alone to amend all the wrongs they'd committed.

However, she still needed their cooperation to return to the _Darlile_ , so she swallowed the urge to berate them and played the political angle.

"Very well," she said calmly. "I will bow to Ron's commitment. But he may yet need my assistance. The Games..."

"You cannot interfere, Cache. If the Lords even think he has received aid, whatever our team has won will be nullified under the pretense of deceit."

Cache felt her temperature rise again. This was unacceptable!

"Do you not foresee a problem?" she asked...her words laced with a snarl. "Do you think the Empire will not recognize who he is? He was seen by millions...more likely billions...of their realm when he fought on Caron! Do you think the Kreete will allow him to survive in their blood-sport games? They will have him assassinated!"

"We think it unlikely, Cache. Their own rules make it extremely difficult to..."

"THEIR RULES?" she screamed, so livid she felt her head would literally explode. "Their rules are designed to give them innumerous 'legal' ways to kill an opponent who threatens their victory."

"Yes, we understand your position, but Ron Allison has proven to be quite difficult to kill...has he not?"

She stood there dumbfounded for a few moments, staring at the screen as if it were too incredulous to believe.

"That does it!" she finally growled, pulling her pistol out once more and blasting the viewer to pieces before storming out the door toward her little shuttle.

"Cache, wait!" cried the voice over the ship-wide intercom. "We cannot allow you to disrupt this plan! There is too much at stake!"

"Well you should have thought about that before setting this whole insane plot into motion!"

"But Ron Allison agreed to it! He has accepted our motives and his role in the arrangement."

"Yes...I heard. But he does not know what he is up against. He will trust himself and his abilities to win the day...but they will not be enough. I have studied the Triad's 'Games' for many cycles, and I know exactly what they will do...how far they will go...to preserve their pride and position of invincibility.

"He and his teammates, whoever they might be, will be systematically eliminated! That is a certainty!"

There were no internal weapons in the alien ship, so Cache needn't fear being attacked while she dashed from one end of the craft to the other, but she held her weapons in her hands just the same.

When she reached the docking station she'd used to gain the inside, she pressed the pressure switch designated as "Open", but nothing happened.

"We cannot allow you to interfere, Cache. We are sorry. It has to be this way."

Holstering one of her pistols, she plucked her com unit off her hip and called her own ship.

" _Darlile_...are you ready?" It had been well over thirty billots.

"Link established."

"Do you see me?"

"Yes, I have your position."

"Open this door."

Without a moment's hesitation, the door barring her entry slid smoothly aside, and the canopy of her little shuttle was already opening as she stepped into the spacious dock. Cache didn't waste a lita and fairly jumped into her scooter-shuttle, its pressure dome easing down at the touch of her figure to the seat. The inner door to the ship's cabin slid shut once more and then the one to outer-space began to move in the opposite fashion.

"Are you encountering resistance?" Cache inquired when the tiny engine was running.

"Affirmative. The alien ship is trying to block my commands through seven hundred and sixty different avenues."

"Will they succeed?"

There was a short pause that caused Cache's heart to flutter. She gripped the controls of her mechanical steed tightly.

"No."

A wry smile alighted on her face and she settled down immediately.

"Humph!" she grunted. "They are not the only ones gifted in circumventing another's technology!"

A few moments later she cleared the dock's portal and sped away to the inky black speck that was her own ship.

"Alert!" the com said with a hint of urgency. "Your shuttle has been detected by the frigate, _Dragstar_. They are moving into the field."

"Understood. Begin the start-up sequence!"

"The damping field is still operational. There is..."

"Use ignition protocol, 'Deep Space'...authorization code: Nefarious-159."

The computer accessed the security file while Cache began slowing her approach. The file was a highly encrypted security measure that held no connection to any of the data the aliens had stolen from her. She'd verified that while waiting so long for their communication with Ron.

"Confirmed," the ship said, and then Cache saw the heat plumes jump to life.

Three more of the Kreete vessels lurched forward suddenly, seeing the white-hot churning energy exiting the _Darlile_ 's aft section.

Cache slid the tiny craft into its berth with graceful perfection and impatiently waited for the compartment to pressurize. A moment later she was dashing forward to her own command center.

"Show me!" she ordered as she took her seat and strapped in.

The large, wall-to-wall viewer sprang to life and pinpointed the enemy ships now surrounding and converging on her. Her heart began to race again.

"Can you find a way out of here?" she asked the avatar.

"There is a narrow corridor that shows the least activity...with the best possibility of..."

"Plot your course to these coordinates," sounded a voice over the com as the information popped up on the forward screen.

"Why would I trust you?" Cache asked angrily. "And that is directly at the _Polarian_ _Shark_...a heavy destroyer!"

"Yes...it is. But you must believe that we do not wish you any harm. We only meant to delay your involvement with our plans. You would have been safe here, but now that you choose to leave, we will provide protection for your escape."

"How? Where are..."

Before Cache could finish her question, the _Darlile_ broke in. "There is movement in the debris field."

"Where?" Cache asked.

"Everywhere."

It was true. Every single planetoid or fragment displayed a change of status, as if throwing back the curtain on a thousand camouflaged stations.

"What are they?"

"From the information available through visuals alone, I would conclude that they are projectile accelerators," the _Darlile_ replied.

"Railguns!"

"They are designed to fire pellets that have no charge and will accept no charge. That will prevent..."

"The Kreete from being able to deflect them!" Cache said excitedly. "A weapon like that would cut right through their ships!"

"Yes...they will!" acknowledged the mystery voice. "Now go!"

Cache needed no more encouragement than that, shoving the throttles forward hard and feeling the immense acceleration of her hand-crafted warship. The feeling took her breath away and captured her gasp in its thrilling grip.

The enormous Kreete warship began to grow in her viewer rapidly and quickly encompassed the entire screen with its bulk. Cache saw their forward weapons array fire a blast that would have incinerated a thirty story building in a lita, but the influence of the peculiar spatial region absorbed it easily. She had expected that, but she also knew it would be a totally different thing once she exited the field, and so she braced herself for that moment, hoping the alien faction would make good on their word. A few borts later she found out.

The _Darlile_ tore out of the protected realm on a course that would take her within five hoz of the destroyer's position, and she saw four other ships powering up their drives to take up pursuit. The ship's sensors began feeding her all the usual data, so she sifted through it as fast as she could. She knew she could out-run any of them on a straight race, but they had a vast advantage of vectored positioning that would negate her speed before she could get clear. And even though it should have eased her mind to see the _Darlile_ 's shields wrap her in their security, it did not.

Cache's heart pounded and her knuckles drew white as she watched the scene unfold and awaited her fate.

Just when the _Polarian_ _Shark_ 's weapons should have started pounding the _Darlile_ however, a new factor jumped into play. The closest planetoid unleashed its arsenal!

A one-foot-long, four-inch-thick cylinder set out at nearly half the speed of light, passed the _Darlile_ just off her left wingtip, and slammed into the destroyer at its forward gunnery station. The kinetic energy transfer was phenomenal! The station and its surrounding super-structure exploded in a silent, fiery display that was incredibly bright and spectacularly violent as she closed the gap rapidly.

Another round shot out and tore into its starboard engine nacelle, and that too erupted with a brilliant, ferocious result. It was so powerful that the _Darlile_ felt the concussion of the erupting engine as she blazed past that side of the enemy ship.

Cache didn't hesitate to unload a few well aimed rounds of intense plasma energy into the crippled ship as she closed either, and then she set her sights on the next target.

The _Polarian Shark_ tried to fire at the _Darlile_ but the yaw effect of losing half its thrusting drives sent it into a spin that took the aft guns out of range, and then the blue lightning from the _Darlile_ 's cannons obliterated them all together. A few litas later it began to cartwheel out of control as yet more kinetic missiles slammed into its fuselage and ripped enormous holes through the pressurized structure. In under five borts the _Polarian Shark_ was lifeless and adrift...its massive carcass heading out into open space to become fodder for the first reclamation firm to find it. Five thousand Kreete soldiers and another thousand supporting crewmembers perished in that surprise, one-sided battle.

By then the _Darlile_ was well underway at maximum sustainable thrust and Cache was laying down defensive fire to try and slow two cruisers' approach. The advanced energy rounds the _Darlile_ spit forth did a wonderful job at crushing the defense of the Kreete, and would have taken out at least one of them, but the aliens' artillery batteries accomplished that for her.

First they struck the engines of the threatening vessels, causing the ships to fall back hurriedly and leaving the _Darlile_ blasting away like a bullet, and then the following volleys struck the fuel cells. Once that happened, there was no more fight. Each of the attacking ships cracked open like giant eggs and began their own death spirals out into oblivion.

The rest of the once mighty Dreadnaught attack fleet immediately began a hasty retreat from the area. They fired as menacingly as they could, but the unique properties of the floating rocks prevented even one charge from landing. It was a perfect killing field for the Kreete's enemy.

Cache first sighed with relief, and then she started rethinking her position.

" _Darlile_ , can you reestablish communication with the aliens?"

"Affirmative."

There was a brief pause.

"Done."

"Why have you helped me escape?" she asked sternly, her inner self suspecting some type of betrayal.

"As we stated...we wish no harm to come to you. What you saw on the viewer is exactly our position. We would like to join forces with you and your people. It is vital in fact that we do so. We realize the tactics we employed have caused much worry and distrust to form in your mind, but we still feel we did what we had to do...given the circumstances and the time schedule."

Cache sat and fought against the exhilarating feeling of acceleration her creation was yielding for quite some time before speaking again. The aliens waited quietly...patiently.

"I have never heard of your planet," Cache told them, still suspicious despite their aid in the recent clash.

"The Kreete have taken extraordinary steps to keep that information tightly secured."

Cache mulled that over a while longer, but eventually relented.

"Very well," she finally said. "I will not interfere...but I want to know where Ron is headed...NOW!"

### Chapter Nineteen

### The Games of the Triad

Day 1:

Ron awakened to the sound of the ship's alarm. It wasn't signifying any danger, but rather was a simple wake-up call. He didn't know that however and his mind immediately jumped alert, ramping up his survival senses in a blink. He sat up stiffly through the heavy, slippery weight of the gel and recognized the feel of real gravity immediately...and it was strong.

They'd landed somewhere at least as heavy as Parkanick, and it was time to start the acclimation process all over again. What would the air smell and taste like? What would the star look and feel like? Was there a moon, or many? Would the stars look familiar or alien? Would they all die here?

He felt cold, tired, sore, and drained, like he hadn't slept much, and his head pounded horribly once again. But this time he recognized those symptoms as the after-effects of the cryo-sleep deceleration protocols to get into the star-system, so it wasn't quite as bad. They had all been in the sleep chambers for the past twenty billots...all but one of the Benoits. They didn't seem to be unduly bothered by the stresses of deceleration, so they posted one of their kind to watch the ship while the others slept. (Draake didn't like having their lives totally dependent on the ship's artificial intelligence)

Altogether, it had been a total of three weeks' travel to get there. The Varsegian vessel was rather slow. Ron knew how far they'd traveled from asking the ship's avatar, and did his own mental calculations to conclude that the _Darlile_ would have made the same trip in one.

He moved about slowly, stretching and regaining his balance while the cleaning program dropped into position, and then he welcomed the hot rinse very much. Also, he began wondering what this place would require of him, and how many lives would be lost in this fool's pursuit of a false hope of winning.

He was all too familiar with his team's primary opponent and knew it didn't matter much about the appearance of fairness, or the joke of a competition with the Kreete. They would have the deck stacked unquestionably in their favor. Anyone who'd volunteered, or was coerced, or simply shanghaied into participating like he'd been, would merely have to do whatever they could for as long as they could just to survive. That was really all one could hope for. He was unquestionably convinced that the Ordiceans were overly optimistic, idealistic fools.

The viewer in that section of the ship showed they were on the planet Ruutarzy now, the first stop on the Triad's insane quest for sport and bloodshed. It was warm outside, according to the temperature readout on the vid-screen, so whatever awaited him out there, at least he would be comfortable.

The cleaning cycle ceased at that point and Ron headed for his quarters without further delay. Just as before, he tended to his bodily needs and got dressed, but this time he was requested to don a new garb...a uniform specially designed to show the officials that he was part of one of the competing teams.

It was constructed of a strange material that was fairly close-fitting until it was in place, and then it shrank to the wearer like a second skin...feeling like it had actually adhered itself to his flesh. At first Ron was apprehensive and afraid it might have literally bonded with him, so he started to try and remove it. That's when the ship's avatar spoke up; reminding him once again that he was constantly under surveillance of some degree.

"The suit is a Cordalian design that clings tightly to the surface of your skin to minimize chafing and discomfort. It is extremely flexible and yet equally tough. It will give you exceptional protection from most abrasions and collisions...except for cutting-edge weapons of course. To remove it, simply place your thumb and forefinger to the collar...on both sides of your throat...and hold for two litas. That will cause the gripping action to relax. And fear not, the material will breathe as well as your own epidermis."

Ron tried out the instructions a couple of times until he felt comfortable with the system, and then studied the multitude of designs and insignias that adorned its surface in a mirror. It was mostly light brown in color with a v-shaped panel of navy blue down the front of the shirt to the waist, accentuating the already pronounced, inverted triangle contour of his torso. There was a wide band of matching blue along the outside of his legs as well, inlaid with letters designating his name on one side and his homeworld on the other. Ron's read "Caron".

He had an instant of worry that he might be immediately thrown in prison because that world was now condemned by the Triad, and therefore anyone from there was considered a mortal enemy. However, the bylaws of the Triad Games guaranteed that any participant was immune from prosecution as long as the competition continued. He didn't know what would happen afterward of course, but that concern was for another day. Also, his DNA would have to be submitted for verification of his molecular class rating, so even if he had them write another planet on his uniform, the officials would know right away.

The Kreete stated that the purpose of that was so they could give appropriate homage to the worlds brave enough to participate. Of course everyone outside the Kreete hierarchy also discerned that they just wanted to know ahead of time exactly who they were facing...and how to "adjust" the events to a more favorable slant for them.

The team's call-sign...Outcasts...was splayed across his back, between his broad shoulders.

Ron couldn't restrain a smile at that.

Also there was a small, seven-sided patch on the left side of his chest. It was the crest of the Kreete Triad.

"What is the Triad's moniker for?" Ron asked, hating to have anything with their designation on his person.

"It is a tracking device. It will monitor your speed, position, heart rate, caloric burn rate, adrenal level, and sixty-seven other physical indicators of your personal health."

Ron gritted his teeth. The Kreete would know everything about him every moment of the tournament.

"How is that fair? The Kreete are going to exploit those readings at every opportunity..."

"It is strictly forbidden for the Lords to access that information. It is only for our medical team to track and record...in order to diagnose any injury you may sustain."

"And you think they won't hack the signal? You don't think they will try to cheat their way around your little system."

"Ron. This is Jazzimeridon. I assure you they may try...but they 'will' fail!"

Ron's eyes opened wide with that statement. He had no idea that the Ordiceans were actually speaking to him directly.

"Please believe me when I say we have taken exceptionally high safety protocols in order to keep them totally clueless about every aspect of Draake's squad. Accept for the exact species of each of you, which we are commanded to report, the Lords will only know what they observe visually."

Ron was satisfied with her assessment.

"Very well then...thanks," he said to the unseen watchers, "but...change my name if you don't mind.

"As you wish. What would you like it to say?"

"Itsu."

There was a long pause before Jazz returned. "It is done."

A compartment door silently slid aside and revealed the new uniform.

Ron smiled wryly and changed, and then he headed toward the mess.

As usual, the food was plentiful, well-cooked, and delicious. They all stuffed themselves and drank as much as they could. After all, they didn't know if they'd get anything else into their system until the day's event was concluded.

Ron hated the lack of knowledge of what awaited them more than the average man, having grown accustomed to leading and calling the shots for so long on Caron, but he'd agreed with Jazz that the Benoi captain needed to be the team's captain as well. It was what the other members were all accustomed to.

Therefore he had to wait like everyone else until Draake informed them about the event to begin mentally preparing. It was all very frustrating, but there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The Ordiceans would only give out what information they thought was pertinent at the time, and always did so remotely to Draake, under a veil of secrecy. Ron played along quietly.

Following breakfast, Ron and his teammates moved out into the largest chamber of the shuttle and began their stretching exercises again. It reminded him of his training period with Cache, preparing for their first clash with the Kreete, but wasn't nearly as pleasant. He could at least see the necessity of it, so he complied without hesitation. Everyone else joined in like a well-trained sports team and soon the stiffness and soreness were behind them. They were ready to move forward.

Draake called them into the conference room afterward to begin the briefing.

"Today we begin the "Feats of Strength" challenge. It is always the first stage of the Games and is designed to give all those watching a good look at each member of each team. Mostly, those stats are for gambling...setting odds and such...but too, it allows everyone the same look at their favorite team and their team's competition.

"As you might assume, there will be seven of them...one each day. They are not typically deadly, but dangerous enough, so keep your focus at all times.

"We will all receive instructions at the associated venue no more than five borts before the event initiates. The reason behind this is that the Kreete feel a true champion can adapt to any challenge better than a lesser being.

"We have less than one billot before commencement, and our first challenge is two hoz to the west, so follow me."

Draake wasted no more time (or words), but rather struck out of the Varsegian yacht and into the newest alien sunrise.

Their first step into the burgeoning dawn though, brought every one of them to an immediate halt. For two, it was the first sight of a living, vibrant world in nearly a cycle; four others hadn't seen real daylight in over two. For Ron it had been only three santaris, but it felt like a lifetime, so he really couldn't imagine what the others were experiencing.

They stood there for a few borts, just gazing around at the incredible beauty of life!

To Ron, the star looked the same as Caron's to the naked eye, but its size and intensity were very different. Here it felt weaker, almost filtered, but at least the air was comfortably warm.

He wondered what accounted for that. Was it the result of an abnormally thick atmosphere, or the planet's high internal core temperature? He noted the color of the sky as an amber hue of gold and his scientific curiosity played games with his mechanical pragmatism. What was he breathing that would make the sky that color? Was it safe, or was it infusing him with a poison that would one day break down his body's immune system?

It was difficult not to consider the hazards since he knew the Kreete wouldn't bother worrying about any such side-effects when they chose the location. For the moment though, it seemed innocuous enough to forget about, so when Draake set off across the short-clipped grass, he did just that.

In the shade, the air was much cooler and refreshing, and so Ron drank in a big draught of it, separating and categorizing all the subtle scents. The morning breeze was heavily tinged with the stench of scorched earth and plant matter from the dozens of ships that had landed in the wide field where their own craft had settled. Still, he could pick out the smells of dirt, grass, trees, and burning wood.

It reminded him slightly of an outing to a raceway he'd enjoyed with his father and uncle once. They'd gone to see some drag races at a strip that was located in the countryside of Louisiana. The smell of spent rocket fuel was very similar to the combination of melting tire rubber and burning nitro-methane.

"At least it doesn't burn my throat like Parkanick," Ron thought.

He casually swept the scene as they trudged down a rough-cut dirt path that crossed a huge meadow and pointed them toward a thick forest. The grassland went on for several hoz to the east, south, and west, and it was cluttered with the hulls of at least a hundred different spacecraft...each a safe distance from the others. Most appeared as if they were placed on the grass by hand, with only their struts inflicting damage to the beauty of the meadow. Those were the ones with the technology of antigravity drives. Some however, still relied on powerful thrusters to slow their descent, and they left scorched earth for hundreds of peors around their vessels. Those engines would burn the soil twenty feet deep wherever they landed, scarring the land for decades to come.

Into the dimness of the forest they plunged behind another team. The two groups kept at least a hundred peors separation between them and no one spoke at all, worried that some small slip of the tongue might relinquish a tiny advantage to their rivals. This competition was no mere game to those resigned to play it.

Ron glanced back once and saw another group falling in behind them. They didn't seem to have the space concerns of the front group...until, at a single bark from Draake, one of the Benoits, Brome, suddenly wheeled around and growled at them. He filled the narrow path with his outspread hands and rumbled with a deep, horrible roar. The encroaching band skidded to a stop immediately, none of them with the size to challenge the giant ultra-heavy-worlder.

"Keep your distance!" he bellowed in the guttural language of the Benoi people. He then turned back and hurried to catch up.

Twenty borts later, they crested a small rise and stepped onto the upper lip of a huge amphitheater recently cut into the hillside. The place had been gouged from the hard stone with such precision that Ron instantly assumed the Kreete had surely used their lasers and massive machines to carve it out. There were two hundred and eighty rows of granite seats with twice as many steps forming aisles between large sections of them. It was quite a marvelous sight to behold...if not for the reasons behind its existence.

The Outcasts followed those ahead of them and descended down an extra-wide stairway that had a twenty peor buffer area from the attending audience. Each member of Draake's squad scanned the enormous eclectic gathering of souls with open awe, and those in the stands did likewise. Never had they seen such a multitude of differing species...and to have them all in one place was almost overwhelming.

Ron's head swung back and forth, as did everyone else's (even Draake's) while the crowd erupted with applause sporadically...when they spotted their particular champions, or just someone whom they hoped would do well.

It reminded Ron a great deal of the Olympics of Earth...until he gazed closer at the crowd. Every one of the forty-two teams was represented in the audience, as well as a hundred others who were not. So many of these patrons had seen their own hopes fall by the wayside as their teams could not meet the preliminary requirements. Now they intently searched those participants who had made it, looking for a champion they could cheer for.

Out of the three hundred and eighty-seven thousand individuals, he saw each of his teammates represented as well as Gordainians with their blazing white hair sprouting straight up, Hoternians who stood at least ten feet tall and were rail thin, Moosharns who had four arms and very squat, powerful trunks and legs. There were Bandians that stood out because of their bright blue skin and red eyes, Fidillions whose heads pivoted around like an owl's and who sported funnel-shaped hats that hung very low to protect their head and eyes from the sun's glare, and Ershieds who had to wear mechanical exoskeletons to be able to move about in the heavy gravity of this world.

Then, as they drew closer to the lower sections, he saw the main reason they were even present that day. The first third of the stands was made up entirely of Kreete!

This whole spectacle was their doing. After all, the Triad Games were solely intended to show the overwhelming supremacy of the mighty Kreete.

Most of them were the huge, ugly, menacing beasts Ron had grown accustomed to doing battle with. But there were also a good number of those who'd chosen to forego the genetic manipulation of their reigning military brethren. Of course all of _them_ were females. The males who did not convert, for whatever reason, were never allowed to publically fraternize with those who had. Warriors were held far above those "cowards" in social status. It was a distinct separation of the classes that the rulers rigidly enforced.

Ron tried to catch a glimpse of the arena, hoping to figure out what the challenge might be, but it was completely shielded from view by cloth draped across a framework of arched poles. It would have given him the impression of a massive tent except for the fact that it was dyed entirely blood red. Obviously the task ahead of them was to remain secret until the proper time arrived.

Draake's team quickly passed below the spectator level and disappeared into the underground holding area with the other forty-one teams and then made their way to their assigned pen. Each squad was then locked in what could only be described as a cell, until called. Once a group competed, they would be ushered to another area so they couldn't knowingly or unknowingly give aid to another team.

While inside those cells, a holo-viewer in each allowed the participants to watch the opening ceremonies for the following two billots. There was much fanfare, exotic fireworks, and plenty of reminders of the winners of the past games...all of whom were Kreete warriors, of course.

High above the planet, out of the limelight and silently racing through space to stay in perfect synchronicity with the spinning world, flew a huge ship. It was not a military vessel with impressive weapons and a Legion of troops, yet at the moment, it was probably the most vital space vessel in the Kreete's realm.

The ship known as the _Confarii_ belonged to a consortium of interstellar communications moguls. They were the Triad's version of what could only be compared with ESPN. They broadcast every type of news and entertainment that was available across the stars, and nothing else could possibly compete with the coverage of the Triad Games. Once every seven cycles, this competition eclipsed every military campaign, every uprising, every new technological discovery...everything. The Triad even postponed beginning a new conquest in order to keep up with it.

Now, in that ship above Ruutarzy, the most powerful "non-military" man in the Triad sat in his exquisite, plush, custom-tailored seat and gave out his commands. He monitored and oversaw the entire competition. It was his responsibility to provide the finest coverage, the most dramatic vantage points, the backstories of the competitors, and of course, not miss a single, gruesome death.

Today however, was just a warm-up. The flourish of the opening ceremonies had been planned and finalized for over a cycle and his real job wouldn't begin until the participants started to show some kind of breakout interest to the crowd. And because of the Lords' characteristically dominant performances, that usually took a while. Typically day one was more of a show than a competition.

Nonetheless, he was solely responsible for every event's planning, coverage, and execution. His superiors wanted excitement, glorious venues, elaborate events, and most importantly; viewers.

This particular day, he merely settled in and let the crew do their work. His input would be minimal if at all.

The order of participants was decided on that first day of the challenge by a representative of the host planet. He drew numbers randomly from one clay pot and paired them up with the team's signature disc drawn simultaneously from another.

Draake's team drew number thirty four, so they had to sit around for the next four billots, waiting their turn.

The avenue up to the arena's surface was nearby, so they heard the crowd's reaction to each group as they strolled out into the sunlight, and then they had to guess at what was happening by the gasps, cheers, or moans of the audience.

The Kreete team (who lounged about in a specially designated area free from bars and twice the size of any other) went out thirteenth in the order, and were met with the loudest roar from their fellows. The rest of the crowd was decidedly quiet, Ron noted, when the Lords emerged. He guessed that they would have loved to boo or hiss at the warriors, but knew better.

Seven times, the Kreete's deep bellowing howls were heard, followed by a tremendous, long-lasting round of applause when the final competitor was finished. Ron could only imagine that they had done extremely well...most likely setting some remarkable, unattainable standard.

At last the grueling wait ended. It was finally time for them to take their turn, and out they filed...the Benoits leading the rest of the team. Ron had to smile at the sight of them. It was like watching three full grown geese leading four goslings.

Ron's eyes darkened as soon as the bright sunlight struck his face, and he felt great relief when he could finally take in the scene of the challenge. The clamoring, screaming, and roaring crowd instantly disappeared in his consciousness.

He was all business, yet wasn't nervous in the least, taking in...no...absorbing a thousand bits of data with every step forward. His face was a mask of total ambiguity while his brain blitzed along at a furious rate. It was busy making calculations about the altitude, the temperature, the humidity, and even the amount of swirl the breeze carried, and adjusting his body's expectations around them.

To those closest to him, Ron looked bored, or apathetic, or simply resigned to his fate, but nothing could be further from the truth. Instead of those traits, an almost incomprehensible state of calm settled about him during situations most normal people would find highly stressful...even terrifying. To Ron it simply served no purpose to be anxious. Why waste time and energy trying to forecast what he could do nothing about? Whatever was to come, he was confidant he was as ready as he could be for it.

His attitude could most likely be attributed to his having survived the Retribution Games on Caron, when each bort of life might have been his last, so he savored it. This sport no doubt would have some danger involved, but at least each event wasn't specifically designed to kill the participants in some awful, ghastly manner like back then.

Up in the stands however, a certain little woman with striking, violet eyes was on her feet. She was nervous enough for the both of them, and her heart nearly leapt out her chest when she saw her one-time lover take the field, but she kept herself in check as much as she could. She used her optical enhancer instantly, taking in every movement he made. (Each seat in the lower half of the stands...the most expensive ones...had its own holographic viewscreen)

She noted Ron was in excellent shape...possibly even more muscular than when she'd last seen him. Too, he seemed calm and composed...almost relaxed. She couldn't resist a shake of her blonde head.

"Does nothing affect that man?" she mused while her own body coursed with vibrations.

Just then, the fellow to Cache's immediate right became anxious too.

"I've been waiting for this team!" he told the other four men in his group, flipping his viewer to an enhanced mode as well so he could get a better look. "It's the first time the Ultra-heavies are back in competition!" he commented.

As the team strode out onto the field, the commentator announced the Outcasts and each member of their squad.

"Spectators from across the mighty Kreete Empire, please give your attention to our next participants. This is the first, multi-planetary team ever to participate in the Games. Welcome the Outcasts!"

The crowd applauded loudly, but not with great enthusiasm...more of a show of respect for any group willing to put their lives on the line, no matter the reason or affiliation.

"First, I give you the captain of the team; a man we have seen before, and have great respect for...a former Supreme Commander of the Southern Province of his homeworld, and the last living King of the Benoi people: Draake Tarbold!"

The audience gave Draake a hardy ovation. He did not acknowledge them, and in fact, he never moved.

Ron was truly surprised at who his taskmaster had turned out to be. "No wonder he always assumed his orders would be carried out without question," Ron thought.

"Beside him stands; Alistropolis Popenegrin...General of the Eastern Battalion of the Ranchiss Province...another fine commander and warrior of Benoi!"

The crowd gave another loud round of applause.

"The third member of the ultra-heavy planet of Benoi hails from a northern region of his home. He showed his mettle in the Grianili Battle that carried on for seven santaris of heavy fighting against the mighty Lords...Field Commander: Bromethius Carennigy!"

More applause sounded, but it was dropping in intensity very rapidly.

"Next we have four men, each condemned into slavery through the penal system of the Lords. Barthume Headigon, from the planet of Hosstry!"

Bart turned and waved grandly at the stands. He received a good reaction from them.

"Dexratlige Marrsoman Ruubin, from the Eathanius Moon over the planet Tropia!"

Dex also waved and grinned at the crowd, showing his pride in representing his people. The audience's ovation waned.

"Fraidze Zanferi, from the planet Coriolus!"

Fraidze threw up both hands at the stands and elicited many cheers simply because of his huge, muscular physique.

"And finally, from the outlaw planet of Caron, I give you: Itsu!"

Ron didn't flinch...totally ignoring the announcement...and those watching barely uttered a word of support, and few even clapped.

Ron couldn't have cared less.

"Let's hear it one more time for the Outcasts!" the commentator urged.

The crowd gave a lackluster round of cheers.

The men beside Cache stared at the massive Ultras for a few more litas before they began their remarks anew.

"What's going on with that, Bertrain?" one of the other men asked. "They have those 'human men' with them! That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"I don't know," Bertrain...the man next to Cache...pondered. "And look at that last guy," he chuckled. "He's the runt of the litter!"

He was talking about Ron of course, who was obviously the smallest of the team. Cache clenched her teeth.

"Yeah," his buddy laughed, "did they run out of real men to choose from?"

Cache balled up her little fist and mentally forced herself not to punch that man in the mouth.

Bertrain plopped back in his seat with a dejected huff.

"Well, I guess we can at least enjoy when the Benoits compete. That should be something. I was hoping they had a real 'team' though...something to give the Lords a run."

"Yeah, it's really too bad," the third man down the line added. "Hey...you want to bet on how long the little one lasts before he breaks his neck?"

The rest of the group all joined in for a good laugh at that, as did several other spectators around them.

Cache had heard enough. Inside, her blood was boiling, but she kept herself in control enough to smile pleasantly.

"Would you gentlemen care to allow me in on your wager?"

Bertrain had been surreptitiously ogling her since she'd arrived at the beginning of the day, and was more than willing to accommodate her.

"Sure, little lady! That's alright with us...right guys?"

The others happily played along. "Sure...yeah...absolutely!"

"So how about it?"

"I wager one hundred credits that he not only wins the event, but that he sets a new record!" she said coolly...her eyes gleaming away in the bright sunshine. She'd already seen most of the other teams compete and felt it was something right up Ron's alley.

The men all stared at her dumbfounded. "Are you serious?" Bertrain asked with a smile that turned flat when she nodded. He then turned to his friends. "It looks like we have a real gambler, fellas!"

"Okay," they all agreed after a few litas. "Easy money!" two muttered down the line.

### Chapter Twenty

### Porlo di Shatar

Ron first noted that the arena wasn't very large, being barely fifty peors across. Second, he saw there was only one apparatus fixed in the very center. It was a large pole, seventeen peors high (roughly one hundred feet), which had an odd-looking cover overhanging it at the top...like the wide brim of a hat. Dangling from the outer edge of the "brim" was a number of small rings, but there was no indication of what they were for.

Last, he acknowledged there was a single individual inside the arena besides the team. That person was a tall, slim, mature man with dark skin...almost cocoa colored...and even darker eyes. He stood very straight and seemed to be a fellow of immense patience. His hair was short, combed straight back, and was raven black with silver accents streaking through it. His attire was formal; bright blue robes with silver trimmings, a startlingly white, pleated shirt, and scarlet red trousers ending in canary yellow loafers.

Draake stepped right up to the man who stood calmly next to the pole...the head judge, obviously.

Each planet appointed a panel of judges to oversee the events. Those panels were made up of one individual from each of the participating species...except for the Kreete, who had seven. Out of those, the person from the planet on which the event was being held was designated as the primary judge. He gave out instructions and managed the events' conduct. If something occurred that was outside the scope of the written rules, he would make a decision on the acceptance or denial of the happening. If however, the governing panel was called in to give a broader spectrum to the decision, and they overturned the judge's ruling, he would be executed. The severity of the penalty was designed to keep the appointed judge as unbiased as possible, no matter his affiliation.

When they were all huddled close by, the man began his instructions.

"My name is Larshe Mimkin. I am the moderator of these games as long as they are on Ruutarzy.

"The first event of the week is called 'Porlo di Shatar' in our native language...translated to mean 'the column of peril'. The challenge of this task is to climb the 'shatar'...this post," he clarified by patting the column, "as fast as possible, and then gain the pinnacle of the cap. To do that will require you to let go your hold on the shatar and use the rings to get out to the edge of the overhanging cover. From the outermost ring, you must negotiate the handholds formed into the cap to reach the very peak. Once there, you must press a plunger in the center...and then climb back down. Now, bear in mind that not all the rings will support your weight. There are forty-nine rings in all, and seven of them are decoys. Do not choose incorrectly!"

Four of Ron's teammates grumbled and two let out low whistles of despair.

"It couldn't just be a straightforward challenge, could it?" Bart whispered.

"The event is timed. All seven members must participate for the overall team score, but only the fastest five will gain credit toward the individual tournament champion. The timer will begin when the first member of your team touches the shatar, and will end when the last member touches the ground.

"You may use any method you wish to climb, but only one person may be in physical contact with the shatar at a time. Are there any questions?"

Fraidze spoke up quickly. "What if we fall off the top of that thing?"

Larshe merely looked at him whimsically. "That seems quite apparent, don't you think? You will break every bone in your body...and/or die.

"Any other questions?"

No one said a word.

"Very well then, you may begin anytime you are ready."

At that point he stepped off to the side a few peors before turning to face them again.

"They normally don't repeat events without some kind of alteration," Draake told the group, "but this looks the same. Since I have done this before, I will go first. Do what I do."

Without another moment's hesitation, Draake strode right up to the pole and looked up its hundred-foot length while he stretched his arms and shoulders. He took a moment to kick his boots off, crouched down suddenly, and then leaped upward at least ten peors, latching onto the huge stone monolith like a monkey.

The crowd gasped at the height he'd attained in a single bound.

"The gravity here is fairly light for us," Al mumbled to the gawking humans. "It will be easy for a Benoi."

The overly long arms of the Benoi king wrapped around the pole handily, much like the Kreete's would, Ron presumed. He quietly cursed the unfair advantage that always seemed to favor the Kreete as he watched Draake inchworm his way upward. It was true that the Benoits would likely do well too, but there were only three of them on their team, and that stone cylinder was large. It would be more than a little difficult for a normal man to negotiate.

It was a long way up to the top, and he wondered what happened to those who grew too weary to make it. His eyes flashed to the ground around the pole and there he saw what he'd already guessed.

The turf at the base was a soft layer of sand at least a foot thick for twenty feet around. Apparently it was meant to spare anyone who might make a hard landing, but at second glance, his sharp eyes spotted several dark patches in the sand...evidence that hadn't been quite covered up. They were the remains of blood pools which had recently soaked in.

Ron ground his teeth together.

Draake was reaching for the rings by then and made swift work of scrambling up onto the cap and back again. Then he practically dropped to the ground from there, his dense structure absorbing the fall nicely. The rest of the team cringed at the sound of the impact, but Draake calmly stood up and headed toward them. While he was still in his free-fall, Al started up.

The crowd gasped when they thought he'd fallen, but when he arose so easily they went wild!

"Hey, look! We're ahead!" Dex cried out.

All heads swung around to a point off to the east where a holo-scoreboard hovered in mid-air. It showed the top ten times of the lead-off contestants and Draake's name was now first on the list!

The Kreete were second through eighth, with two other groups posting times fairly close to theirs, but then the third group was very far behind. Ron recognized the different species and saw that the human teams were the ones so far back. He could tell the climb was going to be a real challenge even for him, and understood that they would drop way back in the standings when the human members of the team had their chance. His mind then began furiously calculating...going over several alternate methods of moving that could possibly speed up the ascent.

When Al was halfway up the column, the top of it suddenly set off spinning. It increased in speed until the rings were a blur, and then slowed to a stop once more.

"What the sart was that all about?" Dex asked.

"So we can't find a set of rings we all can use safely!" Brome answered with a smile. "It adds to the drama."

Dex grinned widely at him, and then when he turned back to his human friends, his eyes switched to a more panicked appearance

"Ron!" Fraidze said. "Man, I don't even know if I can make that. Holy dragen monkey piss, that's a long way up there!"

"Yeah," Ron agreed. "I know. I wish I had a set of tree spikes and a..."

Ron quickly looked down at himself, then up at the last Benoit far above. He had about a bort to consider his knew plan.

"Larshe," Ron called over to the judge. "Is there anything written about how we climb?"

"No. You may use any means you wish, as long as no one else assists you."

Ron looked up again. The Benoi was about to begin negotiating the top maneuver, so he kicked his boots off and hastily loosened his trousers. A moment later he slipped them off as well, leaving his lower half completely naked.

That immediately drew the eyes of the audience away from the competitor and murmuring began to grow in earnest. Cache blushed heavily, but did not look away.

"What the dragen sart is he up to?" Bertrain wondered out loud, spilling a bit of his drink as he hastily swapped his view from Brome to see what Ron was doing.

The entire crowd began a low mumbling wave as they did the same.

"Looks like your boy is already freaking out, little lady," Bertrain's friend commented with a chuckle.

Cache too was perplexed, but she'd seen Ron climb before and knew he had a plan, so she just watched in silence.

Ron's partners stared at him like he was mad, but he'd lived more than half a cycle completely without clothes during his captivity, so having people stare at him now didn't raise his concern even a little bit.

He took the pants by one leg end and whipped it round and round quickly, his gaze now locked on Brome far above.

"What the shadze are you doing man?" Fraidze asked.

Without answering, Ron approached the base of the pole quickly and threw the twisted pants around it.

"Do not touch the shatar!" warned Larshe.

"I'm not touching it. The cloth is. You didn't say anything about that in your rules."

Larshe wanted to protest, but he had no basis to, so he relaxed back to his position of monitor.

"Damn!" Ron cried. "It's too short! Fraidze, give me your pants...quickly!"

"What? Are you nuts, man? My whole planet's watching! I'm not going to..."

"No one may assist the competitor!" Larshe jumped in once more.

"Shit!" Ron hissed before he realized one more angle.

His hand flew to his throat and his eyes stared at the giant Benoi warrior climbing back over the edge of the hood. He had maybe ten more litas.

At the instant the shirt relaxed, Ron ripped it from his torso and tied one of the long sleeves to his pants' leg. By that time Brome had negotiated the rings back to the central post and was heading down.

When Brome's feet slammed into the sand, Ron had the long "shirt/pants/rope" at the ready, tightly wound and firmly gripped in both hands.

It took a lita to get the length just right, and then he was off!

Leaning back enough to get his balance, as well as enough pressure on his feet to keep from slipping, put a great deal of stress on his grip, but it was manageable. Luckily the column was made of a naturally rough material that gave his feet excellent traction. The other side of that fact however, was that it was also extremely abrasive, so he had to just hope the material his uniform was made from was everything Jazz had described, and tuff enough to take the abuse.

Up he went...shakily at first...and then quickening his pace until he was climbing faster than even Draake had. Halfway up the pillar, Ron looked like a champion lumberjack at a pole climbing competition, flipping the pants-rope upward with remarkable ease and ever-quickening rapidity.

By the time Ron was three-quarters up, Fraidze stood at the bottom of that tall pillar naked as the day he was born, with his own uniform copying Ron's and butterflies swarming in his stomach. At Draake's orders, the two remaining men were soon lining up beside him, swinging their privates in the breeze just like Ron's were, and studying his technique as carefully as they could.

When he reached the top, Ron hugged the column hard with his knees and transferred the rope to his teeth before kicking off firmly in a backward leap. That move sent him flying passed two sets of rings to catch a pair at the very edge of the cover, hanging barely within his outstretched reach. He'd gambled everything on the hope that there wouldn't be two fake rings set in line side-by side.

To his delight, they both held his weight and allowed him to complete a powerful swing that carried his momentum up and over the peak of the cap where his body ended up flat across the top of the device, his heels landing solidly on the plunger. The chime sounded loudly across the arena and instantly evoked a mad-capped explosion from the crowd.

To his teammates, the sound was deafening, but Ron heard nothing past the chime. He was already snapping his feet up and away where his move carried him back off the cap and sent him sailing toward the stone shatar once again.

He softened the impact with his feet but still had much of the wind knocked from him before latching on tightly. By the time he took two small breaths though, the rope-pants were once again around the column and in his hands and he was headed downward.

Ron dropped the final twenty-five feet into the soft sand and rolled clear, popping up with a heaving chest and a broad grin across his face, watching to see if Fraidze could copy his act.

There was pandemonium in the stands at that point because the Outcasts' team stood firmly in the lead with three members to go. Everyone suddenly leaped to their feet, screaming as if their own brothers were out there on the field.

Fraidze made the climb slowly at first, but then adapted Ron's method to better suit his own size and balance until he finally sped along well enough to post a climbing time as fast as the middle Kreete had. He had a bit of trouble at the top because he wasn't quite as daring as Ron with his "all or nothing attack" but managed to gain the summit and get back down in good order. The team met him on the ground with raucous cheers and boisterous chants.

Ron hadn't noticed while he was on the pole, but the crowd was rapidly becoming whipped up into an absolute frenzy. The Kreete too were roaring, but decidedly opposite the rest. Their clamor was about a foul...cheating being clearly heard in their cries...but the vast majority of the onlookers in the stands were still cheering like they'd lost their minds.

Ron took a peek at the scoreboard and had to stare at it for several litas before realizing what he read was actually the truth. Their team was a full bort faster than the Kreete! He spun about to watch Dex speeding upward and grinned all the more. The men Draake had recruited were daring, nimble, and well-coordinated. He had done well in his selection...at least for the time being.

Ron returned his full attention to the sport then, and he quickly found himself screaming along with the crowd. Could it be that they actually had a chance?

It would all be up to the final man, so when Dex dropped to the sandy ground with a loud thud and a powerful release of air, every pair of eyes locked onto Barthume Headigon.

His rope snapped around the pillar firmly and he practically jumped into action, but his technique was poor. He was rushing too much, and after only fifteen feet, he lost his footing and dropped hard to the ground, landing flat on his back.

The crowd let out a dejected moan instantly, as did the other members of the team. Bart wheezed and gasped for breath while struggling frantically to regain his feet, but the clock steadily ticked away all the while. The Kreete section suddenly stopped their moaning and stood breathless, watching the chrono as well...and the fallen man. The lead was closing fast.

Draake snorted in disgust and took a step forward. His great maw opened to spew out a few expletives at the dazed fellow, but Ron slammed his hand into the giant's chest hard.

"Don't!" Ron whispered in a husky, angry tone. He knew the massive Benoi could pound him into the ground without much problem...and probably would have if he hadn't needed him so much...but he took the chance anyway. "You can't help him, and threats won't speed him up!" he hissed. "Bart knows what's at stake. He rushed too much and didn't find his balance. It's a mistake he won't repeat...I promise you. Just let him be!"

Draake's misshapen brown eyes stared down at Ron for a long couple of litas, and Ron could tell he was struggling hard with his self-control, but he held his temper and then looked away at Barthume.

Bart was still gasping and shaking his head, but he had the rope around the stone once more and with a haggard gasp of air he started upward again. He began slowly this time, measuring the amount of snap it took to work the rope up each time he took a step, and soon he had a rhythm down that rivaled even Ron's in its fluidity. By the time he was halfway up, he was moving swiftly, and by the three-quarter mark, he was practically running! He copied Ron's desperate move at the top too, just to make up time, and was successful. The way down saw him dropping like a rock, yet controlled enough to slow his descent at the bottom adequately to land with a nice roll just the way Ron had done.

He popped to his feet and whipped around to see the score before he even let go of the rope. As one, Draake's team erupted in a mad cacophony of whoops, screams, whistles, and roars, joined by the entire non-Kreete crowd in the stands.

Normally, their team would have been escorted swiftly away to allow the next one to move up, but for the following ten borts, no one went anywhere. The sponsor of the Kreete squad, Trovine Qaard, (a Reaper class warrior) was screaming at the judges' booth, ordering them to disqualify Draake's team score.

"They cannot be allowed to mock our competition!" he growled. "They used an illegal..."

"The rules clearly state that 'The contestant may use any means he/or she wishes, be it claws, tentacles, suckers, multiple limbs, webbing, tails, or any variation of them, so long as there is nothing left on the pole when they are finished and they do not fly'."

"It also says they cannot use tools, or climbing aids!" Trovine countered heatedly.

"Yes, but is clothing an aid? I noticed that your team is dressed in some rather heavy, snug-fitting attire...not the typical garb of a Kreete warrior is it? I'd wager that it holds up well against the rough surface of the pillar, and gives excellent grip...almost as if you knew what the challenge would be ahead of time."

Trovine's gray-skinned face turned dark and grim in an instant, and he very much wanted to feel a sword in his hands at that moment. Larshe remained remarkably calm however. He knew the entire Triad was watching and gambled that Qaard would prefer to keep his honor over this paltry matter.

"All contestants are permitted clothing, so it is my decision to allow them their prerogative about how best that clothing might help them. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I demand that you put it to a vote!" Trovine told him, leaning in closely...trying to intimidate the man.

"If that is your wish...but let me remind you, Lord Kreete. This is just the first event, and you get only one challenge for the entire tournament. Are you sure you want to use it now?"

Trovine fumed even more as Larshe's warning sunk in. It was far from certain that the panel would vote his way if he pressed it. Too, this was a bitterly disappointing loss, but there was still time to make up for it. It was a long competition.

Ron watched with a broad grin as the Reaper literally vibrated with anger before speaking again.

"I withdraw my challenge," he said with unusual calmness, before stomping his way back to the Kreete section. They all watched his retreat in open disgust and outright fury.

Larshe then turned to Draake Tarbold and motioned to the side. "You may escort your team from the field now."

Draake nodded and tossed Ron a thankful, smirking grin. It was a small gesture, but was more praise than Ron thought would ever come from the giant. The four human men all huddled together briefly, exchanging rough hugs and slaps on the shoulders and backs.

"That was brilliant, Ron," Fraidze told him. "How did you ever come up with it?"

Ron just shrugged his wide shoulders and grinned back.

"Well done," Larshe whispered when Ron passed him. "They've never been beaten in this event. That's why it was first in the Games. They always want to start off with a win. Good luck in the future!"

Cache watched them all disappear into the underground holding area with her heart bursting with pride before turning to her neighbors. She then blasted them with a dazzling grin as bright as the star above. Ron's time was eleven litas faster than any other.

The men beside her were still awestruck, but sent their wagers to her account without protest.

"Thank you," she told them, bowing slightly, and without the gloating tone she really wanted to use.

"It was worth it!" Bertrain said at last. Then he whispered to her; "To see those slags beaten so soundly is worth double that amount...but I fear how they will respond."

Cache's inner pride in Ron suddenly turned to worry.

Twenty-eight thousand hoz above, aboard the enormous Kreete communication vessel, the _Confarii_ , its commander clenched his enormous fingers on the goblet he held until it collapsed. That action sent his expensive, eel-blood liqueur splashing to the floor and spraying the seat he was in.

That seat was centrally located in a huge, half-moon shaped room, much like the command center of one of the heavy Kreete battleships. At his station, he could oversee and coordinate everyone working in the room and call up any of the other monitors' feeds to his personal holographic viewer, but his was completely secure from them. It was the way of the Kreete. The leaders always had nearly total oversight of those beneath them.

Protarsen Ghien leaped to his feet in rage, still staring at the central viewer of the more than seventy different screens.

"Arsisi!" he bellowed, flinging the crushed container from him in a backhand toss.

At the rear area of the large control room stood four beautiful young, human women. They were servant slaves assigned to the com-center to perform menial tasks for those who worked there. Their duties were to fetch food, drinks, run the occasional errand, and clean the vast array of equipment. Each slave girl was from a different planet and none spoke the others' tongues, yet they'd all been taught Kreete so they could interact with their masters.

Arsisi was from the planet Ghostaire, a class 9.8 world in the Orviny Sector, but she'd never seen it and never even knew her parents. Separated from them at a young age, she'd been shipped to a marketing facility on a deep-space city-station called _Vosk_ because it was more centrally placed in the Triad than her homeworld had been. That galactic trade port was where she was raised, educated, and trained to perform the duties she now had. She was sold to an agency that provided servants to any customer in need, and thereby eventually made her way to the _Confarii_. She didn't understand when people spoke of life "planet-side", or weather-related topics. She viewed everything through the ship's monitors and had nothing to compare such things to. Life in space was all she had ever experienced. She didn't even comprehend the strife people endured under the lash of the Kreete, or their wish for freedom. Her indoctrination was extremely thorough and she simply believed that some were masters and some were slaves. The notion of rebellion was completely foreign to her. Those who obeyed lived their lives in relative peace, and those who challenged the Lords were outlaws and criminals.

Arsisi sprinted forward at his beckon, immediately dropping to her knees in front of him.

"Lord!" she uttered with her head down, hands to the sides, lightly touching the wet floor.

"Clean this up!" he bellowed as he stomped away. "And you!" he growled at one of the fourteen monitor operators that helped disseminate the live feed across the Kreete Empire. "Find out who that flarge is!" he ordered, pointing back at the frozen picture of Ron. "I want to know everything about him!"

Protarsen then exited the control room to make his official report, not even bothering to shut down his station. (It would self-terminate when he was out of his seat for more than five borts anyway) The Games he was running had started off badly, and that would not sit well with his superiors.

The large broadcast station was manned every moment without fail, to distribute information to the hundreds of worlds all around the Triad, but the commander's private booth was not, because he did not share his duties with anyone. Therefore, Arsisi was left alone to perform her task. She did as commanded, but the drink had traveled quite a distance and encountered several channels and grooves that were difficult to get to.

It quickly became clear that it would require several billots of tedious labor to clean it all, so when she'd been alone for half a billot, she took a break. She cautiously slipped onto the massive command seat, watchful for anyone's return, and peered about.

She'd been Ghien's slave for nearly a full cycle, so she knew exactly how the system worked. She was incredibly naive about life, yet was extremely intelligent when it came to electronics...and she had an excellent memory.

Luckily, since it was not a military vessel, the security protocols were horribly primitive. There were no biometric locks or safeguards. All that was needed was the operator's codes, and even though it was twenty-eight characters long, she easily recalled it.

She triggered the central viewer to restore the image of Ron and his team, and then took a few borts to just stare at him. She'd been watching the competition with great interest...it being the only entertainment she'd witnessed while aboard the vessel...and was mesmerized be all the foreign species. Ron was of extra curiosity to her however. Seeing him up close and naked from every conceivable angle was enough to convince her that he was the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen, and she silently prayed for his continuing success in the future events.

Also however, she understood that when her Masters showed interest in someone, it was generally not good news for them...and they did not forgive or forget.

"Take care, Itsu," she whispered, "May the Guardian watch over you, because the Lords will certainly be coming."

### Chapter Twenty-one

### Marksmanship

Day 2:

The Outcasts were up early and chattering excitedly during breakfast that morning, their previous day's victory still a joyous thought in the forefront of their minds. When they left the _Shurnoot_ , it seemed like everyone had Ron's calm, almost tranquil attitude and confidence as they marched away into the brightening sunrise.

It was a three hoz hike to the required venue, and that took them through some beautiful rolling, forested land, and across a wide, fast-flowing river. The bridge spanning that waterway was phenomenal in its intricate artistry, using exquisitely formed granite blocks and immense wooden beams in such elegant combination that it resembled a sculpture more than a practical conveyance.

At first, Ron assumed the Kreete had used their vast technology to create it just for the sake of the Games, to show off their own abilities. However, as he strode across the road's cobblestone surface and marveled at the laser-like precision of the stonework, he spotted a marker set deeply into the center capstone. Immediately startled, he read it twice before believing it.

"This bridge is four-hundred and sixteen cycles old!" he said to Fraidze in disbelief.

The Benoits glanced at it quickly and gave a snort, continuing on without another thought, but Ron...as well as the other humans...quickly concluded that the natives of Ruutarzy were undoubtedly magnificent artisans.

Draake's squad was greeted with much fanfare when they entered the new arena, and the cheers from so many strangers bolstered their spirits even further. That multi-tiered grandstand was constructed very much like the Roman Coliseum, being completely made of stone blocks, only it was single-sided and extended for over a quarter-hoz. Towering above them, the upper seats were easily a hundred and fifty feet away from the field of play.

Ron gazed out at a crowd that numbered somewhere in the five hundred thousand range, most of who dangled some form of visual aids like binoculars around their necks, and he wondered for a few moments about their obvious widely varied lives. His curiosity was boundless and he inwardly yearned to investigate the multitude of strange planets. That lasted barely a couple of borts however, before his thoughts returned to his own life...and all its peril.

The team paraded halfway across the length of the place before disappearing once again into the depths of the holding area located under the seats themselves. And just as the previous event had done, the current task was hidden behind opaque curtains draped from tall poles.

The waiting pens were aligned in long rows, like prison cells, but when the doors closed, there was no way to see out, apparently to diminish the urge to interact with any of the other teams. (Such infractions during long ago competitions had ended very badly, and so the officials running these games had henceforth sided with caution.)

Draake received his summons at the appropriate time to witness the choosing of the teams' order, but when he came back, he was unusually grumpy...and for him that was really something.

"The 'Lords' have decided that they will alter the order of placement for this competition...to let it be more fairly distributed," he growled.

Ron felt his stomach tighten. Whenever the Kreete offered to make something more fair, it typically was exactly the opposite...to their advantage!

"Instead of using the teams' current points standings as a base," he continued, "they elected to let it be done 'strictly by chance'."

Ron felt his anger rising. "Strictly by chance, huh?" he huffed.

"Therefore, 'purely by chance' of course, we are up first."

"And the Kreete's team?" asked Brome.

"As it so happens, they will compete last!"

Ron's temper spiked sharply and he balled his fingers into fists that he desperately wanted to pound into one of those gutless bastards.

No matter how they felt though, they had to shake those thoughts out of their heads and follow Draake immediately onto the field.

When they did, they found themselves staring at a wide variety of events which utilized multiple weapons, scattered across the stadium's sprawling infield.

Larshe stood patiently by, waiting for Draake's team to approach, but they were preoccupied with studying the contraptions in front of them, so it took a few moments.

"If I may have your attention please," Larshe finally announced, drawing the team to him.

"Thank you. Now, this day's challenge is called the Finestry Mortalty test; Marksmanship!

"There are no penalties or extra allowances for being heavy-worlders, so perhaps that may ease your minds."

The Benoits let out an audible sigh of relief.

"There are seven separate sections of the event, and each member will have to accomplish every part. However, only the highest five scores of each section will count for the team's total."

"Five!" growled Draake, glaring down at the comparatively miniscule human man, "it used to be the top three!"

Larshe couldn't help but take a few steps backward. "Yes, sir, I know...but the 'Lords' decided that if this was to be a true 'Team' competition, then every score should be tallied, no matter the lack of experience with the particular device. There was a great deal of debate over the issue...as you might imagine...until the Games Committee finally ended up compromising on five."

"And just when did this ruling come down?" Al inquired...his voice almost a growl.

"Well...a-a-a-ctually," Larshe stammered, "j-j-just this morning."

Ron wasn't unduly surprised or dejected about the ruling because he'd never known differently, but the rest of the team...and especially the Benoits...were livid over it.

"Always trying to find a new angle," Draake grumbled.

"As I was saying," Larshe continued, composing himself much better when the Ultras had retreated a bit from him, "each member will compete, so you will need to choose your desired equipment from the assorted devices over here. Then place them at the stations and stand by. Do not dally, however, because you are allotted only ten borts to select."

Draake was ready for that at least, having been through the procedure before.

"Itsu, you're with me," Draake said quickly. "Brome, take Bart to the knives. Al, you and Dex and Fraidze go to the axes. You must choose quickly, set your weapons at their events where you can easily get at them, and then move to the other stations. We will shift clockwise every two borts. Move!"

Ron was already scanning the large variety of bows the Ruutarzy committee had to offer, and so he went to the ones for beings his size quickly.

The bows were all lined up by length, in a descending order, just a few peors behind the first station, with assorted arrows beside them, so it was a fairly straight-forward process. Ron walked directly to the end with the shortest weapons, bypassing the long bows for what he was more familiar with...the recurve style.

He hefted three quickly and gave them a pull, finding them woefully inadequate for someone of his strength.

"Man what I wouldn't give for my..." he uttered softly, and then stopped with a lurch.

His eyes wanted to jump up in that instant and search the enormous crowd milling about in the stands, but he knew that would be a mistake. Too many other eyes were watching...here, as well as on billions of viewers around the Kreete Empire. As it was though, he realized his brief hesitation might cause some suspicion and so he picked up one more device he knew he'd discard immediately before he finally reached out for what he'd spotted...what had surprised him so sharply.

The bow he lifted next was coal black, feather light, and stiff enough to make nearly every other man his size toss it aside, for none but he could pull it. His hand vibrated as he gripped the cord with three fingers and hauled it to his cheek...and then he grinned! Ron's eyes then flicked across the selection of arrows in a blur until he'd found that weapon's mates, and his heart leapt.

There were a few targets set fifty peors off to the side, for experimentation with the choices of bows, and so Ron turned immediately to that area. Draake was already there and had two arrows the size of small spears imbedded in his target. His bow was much taller than Ron was and its grip was so huge that Ron doubted his fingers would even wrap around it. Draake's grouping was very good, all in the center area.

"Well done, Draake," Ron commented as he took up a spot next to the giant.

"I have heard that you are formidable with cutting-edge weapons, Itsu, but I hope you are at least familiar with these as well because there is no time to learn, and we will need every..."

"Flit!" went the first arrow, and then; "Flit-flit-flit-flit!"

Ron only had about thirty litas left to try out his weapon, so he hadn't hesitated at all once he was in position. The target was a common bulls-eye type, with the center being about four inches in diameter, with larger rings spreading out across its five-feet-wide surface. The first arrow struck to the left of center by an inch. The following four all touched one another in the very middle...and they all were shot in less than ten litas.

Draake just stared at his teammate's results for a few moments.

"By all the God's watching over us!" he exclaimed. Then he turned to Ron. "That will do!"

Their time was up at the archery selection, so Ron and Draake set their equipment next to the first and third challenges, and then went to the knives. This time Ron scanned the assortment with renewed vigor, but the set he was looking for was not there. It was just as well though, because the test called for a minimum of ten throws to accomplish it, and so he found a matching set of fifteen and quickly tossed a few. They were well-designed and superbly balanced. He put them where he needed them and pivoted to move again, but paused.

Draake set down his selection beside Ron's, and Ron couldn't help but heft one of them out of pure curiosity.

"Jeez!" he hissed before returning it to its spot. It felt as heavy as a battle axe! Draake just smiled.

Onward to the spears for a repeat of the testing and selection process, and then they moved to the axes as well. When their ten borts were up, the team was ready.

Draake took the first station, Ron was at the second, then Fraidze, Al, Bart, Dex, and Brome.

Larshe was just returning from instructing the other three teams who were spread out across a long field to the other end of the enormous spectator area. There were four identical stations all running at once...the only way to get such a competition done in a single day. Each team was separated by a dividing partition.

The patrons in the audience could utilize the viewers at their seats to follow an individual competitor, or switch between any of them.

Up in the stands, once again, Cache Kuar fidgeted nervously. It was a new venue, so her neighbors were different, but that didn't matter to her. She was focused on her viewer with keen interest and didn't care about those around her.

Suddenly a notice popped up across the bottom of the screen. "Place your wagers now. You have one bort before betting is frozen...sixty-nine litas...sixty-eight..."

She'd seen the same thing on the previous day but had ignored it. Now however, after the good fortune she'd experienced with Bertrain and his friends, she saw a way to put a little pressure on the Kreete without threat of exposure or retaliation. She quickly pressed the insignia marked; "Wager".

The odds were listed on the screen in various formats; to win...to place top seven...to excel in one event or all...and to not finish. In each category were the options of "By team", or "Individual".

The odds for each contestant were then provided next to that person's name.

She didn't hesitate, selecting "Individual". She then touched "Itsu", and toggled "To win", and then "All".

The selection she'd eventually chosen had Itsu at ten thousand to one. She bet all the credits she'd won from the men the day before. Then she just sat back and watched.

A very affluent-looking woman in the seat next to her couldn't resist a comment.

"That is a very aggressive wager!"

Cache turned to face her and just smiled confidently. "We shall see."

"Now for the instructions," Larshe began. "At the first position," he said, standing next to a replica of the distant target, "it is simple and straight forward. The target is exactly one hundred peors away and is the size of a typical human man, approximately two peors tall. Striking it anywhere will give you points. A miss will yield the loss of a point. You are allowed seven tries. The primary goal is to have your arrow strike the torso. That will yield seven points. The arm or leg will be awarded one point.

The head section is the ultimate though, as you will receive fourteen points for that. Understand?"

Everyone nodded, even while looking at the tiny figure so far down-range.

"I think if I hit it at all, it'd be pure luck," Dex muttered.

Larshe then moved to the knife throwing area. It looked like an arcade setup to Ron.

"Here the objective is equally simple. There are twenty-one targets set at varied distances. You have fourteen knives to work with. Each objective is weighted to remain upright. You must strike them accurately enough to secure the blade to the target. When that is accomplished, the extra weight of the knife will cause the target to pivot forward and points will be awarded. The closest ones are five peors and the furthest are twenty. Each target is marked with the score you could gain by striking it, and of course the smaller or most distant ones will yield the highest reward. Understand?"

More nods.

The next section was similar, but since arrows were used, the targets got smaller and farther away...the most distant ones being the size of a tennis ball sitting fifty peors down-range.

The spear throwing allowed seven throws, with three different targets set ten peors apart. Again the most distant objects allotted the greater points.

The next section was moving targets with bow and arrows. There were three different wheels set on three small towers. The configuration appeared like small windmills. Each was at a different distance and they all spun at different speeds and in alternating directions. The targets mounted to those rotating wheels were barely three inches in diameter.

Fraidze let out a long whistle at that one, and even Ron raised an eyebrow.

"Here, you have fourteen tries again, and you may pick and choose whichever you like," Larshe explained.

The next position was axes, and it was identical to the spear-throwing test, although the targets were thicker and heavier.

"At the final station," Larshe said, moving on, "you will be placed on a moving platform."

To Ron, that device appeared to be similar to one of the moving sidewalks he'd seen at airports on Earth...a long, nonstop treadmill.

"You may start at one end and ride to the other, then race back and begin again...or, you may walk and move about as you see fit. You will have three spears, three knives, seven arrows, and two axes. You will recognize each target from the other areas and strike it with the appropriate weapon. Again, each target will be marked with the awarded score.

"Now, the first round will have every member compete at every station. You will be granted five borts at each position. The second round will allow your team to place each man at his best event for one last chance to improve your overall score.

"There will be one bort allocated between sessions, to retrieve the weapons and reposition your men.

"Any questions?"

As intimidating as all that seemed to the group, everyone understood the rules.

"Excellent! Please take your positions.

Draake assigned his men across the wide field and Ron gave them all one last-minute piece of advice.

"Try to remain calm!" he shouted to them. "Remember; smooth is fast, and fast is good!"

"Booooooooom!" sounded the start.

They all went to work then. Ron faced his challenge but for the first few litas, he used his peripheral vision to track Draake's initial shot at the long-range position. He missed right by one peor, but it was difficult to tell if it was due to the wind or simply his aim. Ron then put his full concentration on his own task.

The knives he held in each hand were a little heavier than his personal ones, but the craftsmanship was excellent. Nonetheless, his first tosses were at the intermediate targets, just to make sure his adjustments were accurate. After all, it was better to hit something with a lesser value than to miss altogether at the more desirable ones. Two flips yielded two strikes, so he immediately turned his attention to the more distant goals, and in quick succession, he'd racked up a perfect run, stopping the timer for his station.

At that point, he watched Draake again. The arrows he was firing were four feet long and as large as Ron's thumb, and he used them well. His last arrow struck the target in the stomach area and Ron noted that four others joined it...three of them also in the center mass. Draake's overall score hovered above the target for all to see.

"Nice!" Ron told him as he swung his eyes around to Fraidze at his right.

Fraidze was not the marksman they'd hoped for, but at least he knew it and had stuck to the closer assortment of targets, so even though he only struck nine targets, he put up positive numbers.

Al Pope was finished at the spear section and had a perfect score as well, nailing all seven hurls at the farthest target. Those devices were buried so far into the bull's-eye that Ron had to wonder how anyone could retrieve them.

Bart was very good with the bow and arrow, but on those moving targets, he'd gotten his timing off and had scored only ten out of his fourteen chances. He was discouraged with his performance, but was wisely taking in the final trial going on two stations over.

Dex scored all seven hits with the axe, although only five were in the intermediate target and two in the nearest one.

Brome was at the most demanding task of all and handling it like a seasoned decathlete. He moved on that treadmill's surface with more agility than Ron would have ever imagined, and he was well versed in the use of the tools he handled, putting up an excellent score.

When the final cast was delivered, three Cnauts in each area sprang out of the ground and retrieved the needed weapons, returning them to the competitor's station well within the allotted time.

At that point, everyone shifted and began again.

The team did very well, but when they were finished, they knew they'd left too many points behind to feel really confident of a victory. Still, they were satisfied.

Fraidze tried to apologize to Ron for a less than stellar outing, but Ron could not fault him. He was an excellent athlete and a very good fighter, but not a trained warrior who lived to perfect himself in the use of such tools of death.

"Don't worry about it, Fraidze," Ron consoled him. "The Kreete team has probably had this exact setup to train on for the past seven cycles. They will be unbeatable. You did well, my friend. Let that be enough. There are many more challenges to come."

Draake's team then followed their guides to the new holding area and awaited the end of the competition.

"Your man did extremely well," the woman next to Cache commented when all the scores were up. "I believe that may be the highest tally of any human on record."

Cache was sitting back by then, relaxing and letting the adrenaline of the match wear off.

"Yes he did...and I am quite certain you are correct about the points. Now we just have to wait for all the others to compete."

Almost ten billots later, the Outcasts were led back out onto the field to find out the results.

Ron's prediction had been correct; the Kreete stood atop the leader board, but it was much closer than anyone would have guessed. In fact, when combined with the first day's events' tally, Draake's team only trailed by a slim margin!

"Itsuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" roared through the stands in a mighty wave.

Ron smiled at that, fully realizing that the Kreete section would be grinding their teeth over it, but then...

"Hey-hey-hey!" Bart suddenly said, slapping Ron on the shoulder with his eyes lit up like he'd just won the lottery, "Look at that!"

Off to one side of the enormous scoreboard, there was a flashing set of names and scores...and one of them said 'Itsu'.

### Chapter Twenty-two

### One Last Test

They all stared at it as if it was a dream, and then Ron's teammates began pounding him on the back and congratulating him like mad.

"For the first time in the history of the Games of the Triad," Larshe Mimkin announced with unrestrained jubilation. "there is a tie for the highest score of Finestry Mortalty!"

The audience brought their cheering up another level, vibrating the air in a deafening release of vocalized sound. Cache was right in the middle of it too, screaming at the top of her lungs.

Larshe had to wait three full borts before he could continue. Those in the Kreete sections however, sat quiet and stern.

"Even though it has never before been needed, there is a provision for such an occurrence," he said loudly.

That brought the raucous watchers back in line...although none took their seats.

A moment later, the curtain that had hidden the challenges from the teams when they'd first arrived was whisked up and away to reveal the center of the playing field once more. There were the seven tasks laid out before the crowd, but this time each stage was paired up.

"The two leaders will have another pass at the events...side by side!"

Every member of Draake's team then stared at Ron with a gleam in their eye and a grin plastered across their face.

Ron simply began to stretch out his shoulders, his arms, and his back, while his mind grew focused once more.

"Team Captains," Larshe announced, "please escort your man to the first position."

Draake lumbered along, seemingly his normal, terse self, but Ron could see tiny quakes in his fingers. He was literally vibrating from the rush. When they were at the long-range section, he turned to Ron.

"Remember to stay calm," he said softly. "Smooth is fast, and fast is good!"

Ron grinned back at him as if it were just some kids' game they were playing.

Ron's opponent strode up just then so Draake turned and ambled away, not wanting his animosity toward that fellow to upset Ron's concentration. The other competitor was Grayle Neese, Captain of the Kreete squad.

Larshe stepped up again and addressed the men.

"You have both done incredibly well to reach this point," he told them with genuine praise. "So let me take this moment to congratulate you."

The crowd roared with applause...and this time the Kreete section joined in.

"Now, in this round you will repeat many of the same events, except for some minor changes," Larshe explained as they walked from one station to the next. "First; the only targets left in play are the furthest, most difficult ones. Second; in station two, three, and five, there will be one knife or arrow for each target instead of values given, so the viewers might keep up with the action more easily. Third; the spear throw will add movement to its difficulty.

"And lastly," he said as they stood before an odd-looking contraption, "the final task will be entirely different. It is very unique, and should add to the drama and excitement of the race. Each participant has a basic paddle-wheel that he must coax down a raceway toward the finish using only arrows. This device is made up of a drum mounted on a small axle that rolls along between two rails. The drum has seven evenly spaced paddles protruding from it with small, flat targets marked on them. Striking the paddles with an arrow moves the drum down the rails until it reaches the end, at which time the contest is finished. The entire event is timed, so when the first drum triggers the clock, every additional lita counts as a point against the second place finisher. Now, this event has no limit to the amount of arrows used, but be warned that the rails are designed to be slightly uphill, so any miss slows or stops the drum.

"Do you understand the changes?"

Ron and Grayle both nodded.

"Excellent! Let's return to the first position if you please."

As they walked back, Ron made sure he had plenty of arrows in his quiver, and that all his other chosen devices were accurately placed.

Once they were in position, Larshe moved off out of the way so as not to distract the contestants. As they waited for the start signal, Grayle couldn't resist a shot at intimidation.

"You have done well, puny human," he grumbled. "But now I will show you what it means to challenge a Kreete warrior!"

"Yeah?" Ron replied casually. "I've heard that before...on a planet called Rauld," he added glibly, "right before I exterminated the Master Killer who said it and then destroyed your entire fleet."

Grayle's head snapped around to glare at the little man beside him, his temper suddenly flaring.

"Booooooooooooom!" sounded the start cannon.

Ron's bow was up and an arrow in flight before Grayle could even refocus himself.

Cleverly on his part, while Larshe was addressing them earlier, Ron had scoured and studied the entire field and found the wind had died down to almost nothing due to the natural influence of evening's approach. With that information locked in his mind, he was well prepared to gauge his arrow's path at the onset.

He had to wait for that first tiny missile to reach its target before he could make adjustments, but when it struck the lower part of the target's right hip, he did just that. Grayle was still waiting for his first shot to land when Ron's second struck, and when it hit center mass at waist level, he sent the rest in a fast cadence of pull-and-release.

Ron took off for the second position while the final two arrows he'd loosed were still in the air!

Grayle tried desperately not to let the fact that the mere man was so far ahead of him, but when his sixth shot barely struck the target's edge, he paused an extra moment before he miss-fired the last one. A hasty adjustment brought his aim under control though and then he too moved to the knives.

Ron whipped his fourth blade forward just as Grayle gripped his first. He was throwing with both hands, being well practiced in ambidextrous warfare, and was gone again before his Kreete adversary had tossed three.

Grayle did not get flustered again however, maintaining his set pace and focus like the true champion he was...but Ron couldn't care less. He was in the zone.

At the third station, Ron reloaded his quiver while eyeing the distant targets...fourteen oddly spaced breakable symbols mounted atop a heavy wooden beam. They were easily fifty peors away and appeared the size of golf balls.

Ron drew back on his custom bow and felt its reassurance flood through him, and he smiled. He took a bit more time there, having a widening lead, and sent those black shafts racing forward to snap one after the next after the next, until his beam was clear and his quiver lay empty...and then he dashed away again.

The spears, on the other hand, took a moment for Ron to get his timing with since the targets were now on a rotating, horizontal wheel and only came into view every two and a half litas. But once he locked onto it, those metal-tipped lengths of wood slammed home solidly without fail.

Grayle gripped a much larger weapon than Ron had tossed, and his arm shot back with his first cast as Ron looped around his hulking figure to get his bow back into the game at the next stage.

That event had two sets of seven targets, each moving in different directions, and to the average shooter their close proximity to one another would have been extremely disconcerting, but to Ron (and Grayle alike once he got there) they were totally separate and clearly distinguishable.

Ron took a bead on the ones moving upward and destroyed them all, taking his time once more because of the speed of the movement. Then he attacked those moving down in a similar fashion. There was no hesitation or doubt in his mind...nor did he miss.

He was hefting his first axe when Grayle loosed his initial arrow, but his opponent didn't factor into his thoughts at all just then. Axes were difficult to time and throw because of their naturally unbalanced design and weight, so his world had been drawn down to just the targets in front of him. He never realized that the entire non-Kreete crowd behind him was screaming, whistling, cheering, chanting, and roaring his name as if he were about to win them all their very lives.

Off to the final task Ron flew while Grayle let fly his tenth shot at the moving targets. He had an entire stage between them!

Ron dropped a large load of arrows into his quiver while eyeing that final, newest challenge. The paddles were metal so that the arrows would bounce off them and couldn't foul the action of the movement, since it would take many recurring strikes to roll the device the full thirty peors required. Also, he would have to make sure they hit in just the right spot and tempo to keep the drum rolling.

Ron drew back on his bow smoothly and let fly, readying another quickly for the follow-up shot, but that's when his heart lurched to a stop and his stomach tightened dramatically. The drum did not roll over!

Cache Kuar sprang to her feet as if she'd been launched out of her chair. She was following along with Ron so closely, she might as well have been standing beside him. "Oh no!" she breathed, her face turning beet red at what she instantly knew that meant.

Ron let go another and received a similar reaction to the first shot...and then he just stared at it. It moved about half of what he needed it to, and then rolled back.

The crowd in the stands swiftly caught on to what was happening and their boisterous, raucous behavior instantly quelled to total silence.

Ron fired again, sending a second arrow behind it so fast that it didn't seem possible, but again, the first blow wasn't enough to get the second paddle into the proper attitude, so the second just ricocheted away and the drum rolled back once more.

Ron's mind was screaming with questions and possible solutions, but none of them would work. To him it seemed obvious that the task was impossible. The drum was simply too heavy to move!

"Having trouble, puny man?" Grayle asked calmly as he strode over arrogantly and took up his position.

Ron finally understood why the massive fellow had never appeared rushed or worried.

"It takes a real man's weapon to complete this stage!" Grayle boasted as he fired his own arrow that was twenty percent heavier.

The drum rolled over just enough to have the next paddle move into perfect position!

Grayle should have maintained his professional attitude and simply finished the sport, but he couldn't pass up a chance to gloat, so his own drum returned to the starting position as well.

"You see, you pathetic little human flarge," he growled down at Ron. "No matter what losses we might have sustained in the past, the Kreete are the superior species!"

Ron wasn't even listening though, and his head turned back to the line of equipment where he'd first chosen his bow. He knew he could wield a Kreete's weapon well enough to get the job done, but he also knew he would never be allowed the substitution. He had chosen his bow and would have to either win or lose with it.

Grayle was back in position by then and drawing back on another arrow.

"More weight! More weight! More weight!" Ron kept repeating in his mind, searching for some way to tie two...

"That's it!" Ron suddenly realized, breaking back into motion in a flash.

He hauled two arrows out of his quiver and knocked them up tightly together.

"Yes!" Cache shouted at her viewer, gripping it tightly. "But how will you..."

Then he pulled back on the string until their tips were right at his knuckle. Holding them there for just a lita, he triggered the special function that was built into them and the target tips suddenly sprouted the ghastly killing blades that he used for hunting and warfare. They were shaped like talons and were serrated, giving them a horrible appearance, and an even more terrible ability. Those razor-edged devices were designed to open up upon impact and deliver a tremendous amount of damage to the victim to ensure a quick kill...and they'd always worked marvelously!

Ron quickly nudged one up enough to interlace its blade with the other and then refocused his attention to the target.

"Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!" Cache squealed. "Brilliant!"

Grayle's drum was two peors downrange by then and he had a good rhythm going, firing at every second paddle as they came round, but he faltered just a hair and missed his next shot when he heard the impact of Ron's twin missiles colliding with the paddle.

Ron wasn't about to waste time waiting for the reaction of his plan either, before he was hauling back on his next arrow and slamming it into the second paddle. The drum was finally on the move!

He'd gambled that getting it started was the only real problem, and hoped he could keep it going after that, so now his hands flew at a previously only imagined rate. His lighter equipment meant he had to hit every single paddle as it came around to keep up the momentum, so that was what he did.

"Flit-flit-flit-flit-flit," sounded his bow as his fingers drew and fired in unbelievably rapid succession.

Grayle saw Ron's drum moving forward and his grip tightened on his own weapon, but he was back on track by then and moving well...still a peor out front. From there, he merely continued with the cadence he'd taught himself over the past three cycles of training. He knew he had to maintain his rhythm. Everything was riding on that.

Ron hadn't ever seen such a device before though, thereby he had no such predilection, and so he just ramped it up some more.

When Ron's drum reached ten peors downrange, he was half a peor behind, but it was accelerating.

"Flitflitflitflitflitflit," sounded his strumming bow, as his fingers loaded and fired so fast they were literal blurs (movement that would be watched and marveled at on slow-motion replay for the next several dactrais).

At twenty peors, Ron's drum caught Grayle's and the crowd was going berserk once more...and this time it was the entire crowd. Even the Kreete patrons were on their feet and screaming at the contest.

Ron never let up either, keeping that bowstring strumming and the arrows flying...until...as he watched his drum nearing the final few feet, he reached into his quiver for the next missile and found no more!

Ron looked down into the reserve supply and snatched up another handful as those in the stands all gasped, but by the time he was ready again, his drum had slowed considerably...and Grayle's was closing fast.

Back flew Ron's hand with another arrow, his timing now gone, but he had little choice and had to just go with his gut...and away he sent it.

The paddle his bolt was racing after was already past its prime position, falling away from the arrow at a bad angle, so he knew it would be a lackluster strike. Luckily though, he'd triggered the killing blades to sprout on that one and they bit deeply into the metal paddle enough to transfer their energy and roll the drum one-eighth more turn...all that was needed.

Ron's drum dropped into its cradle half a lita ahead of Grayle's!

At that instant, it felt like an earthquake as the stands fairly exploded with screams and cheers.

Ron stood ready with another arrow pulled to his ear, but slowly relaxed his arm, only then realizing that his chest was heaving tremendously and he was covered in sweat.

The scoreboard showed that Itsu and Grayle Neese had both put up runs with no misses, but too, it noted that Itsu had made two head strikes on the very first target, giving him a fourteen point lead overall. He had clearly won!

Ron couldn't hear a thing, but that didn't register for a few more litas, until he finally looked around and saw his teammates rushing up at him. Just before they reached him though, he turned to Grayle. The colossal being was staring at him like someone would look at a three-headed goat.

The massive soldier said something Ron couldn't make out because of the background noise of the crowd, and then he turned and walked away dejectedly.

(Later that night, when he was just drifting off to sleep, Ron would suddenly realize exactly what Grayle had said, and it would solidify his determination even more. Grayle Neese had said; "So, it really is you.")

At the time though, it didn't matter to Ron at all because he was being hoisted onto Brome's shoulder and bouncing up and down as over five-hundred-thousand people all cheered his name.

He had no way of knowing, but somewhere up there amongst that celebrating crowd, Cache Kuar was jumping up and down like a teenager whose boyfriend had just scored the winning touchdown at homecoming!

When the event was at last winding down, Cache collected her things to leave and glanced over at the woman who'd commented on her bet. She was grinning back at her and said; "You did exceptionally well...I must congratulate you. Four million credits!"

"Thank you...yes...I had a good feeling about him."

"Well, let me give you a friendly piece of advice, Sweetie. Don't bet on him again or you're liable to end up in a shallow grave beside him, because he's made the Lords look bad twice now...and there will definitely be consequences."

"But the contestants are protected...are they not?"

"Yes...at least that's what they say. But he just rallied this entire crowd into a frenzy. He just lost the gamblers a fortune in bets. And worst of all...he showed that the Kreete are not as superior as they claim. Trust me, you don't want to have any ties with that man."

She then patted Cache's hand sweetly and told her; "Good luck to you," and left.

Cache's mind began swirling once more and her worry for Ron escalated considerably.

High above the planet, Protarsen stood in front of his command chair like a statue, as if quick frozen. He was far from cold however and beads of sweat began to form on his brow as he contemplated what the response from the Kreete Ruling Council would be. This was their flamboyant demonstration of just how superior their people were as a species, and losing was absolutely not part of the program.

"Our team is still ahead overall," he muttered to himself, his mind frantically trying to spin the day's results to his favor. "Only the one individual challenge was lost. It is not that bad."

He made three pacing loops around the large chamber, trying to gather his thoughts again. "But the most prestigious title was a fiasco!" his harried thoughts returned. "Beaten by a mere human!" he told himself. "The calculations were perfect. It is not my fault! He shouldn't have been able to move that drum at all. I can't be held accountable! Who could know that he would fire two arrows simultaneously and still be able to hit the dragen target? That buffoon, Grayle, should have performed better! I cannot be held responsible for his failure!"

"Who is that dragen man?" Protarsen roared at his subordinates. Of course none could answer with more information than he already had, so his question just faded away.

He then skulked off once more to face his superiors, clearly shaken.

At the back of the room, Arsisi continued staring at the screen as long as she could, trying to calm her nerves after that incredible event. The hoverbot capturing the scene stayed squarely on Ron and his celebrating friends until the feed was cut, and she didn't blink. Her eyes locked onto to her chosen champion with a powerful longing pulling at her heart. She was still very young and it was a frantic, mounting infatuation.

### Chapter Twenty-three

### Hammer Throw

Day 3:

The following morning started exactly the same, with stretching and light exercises, but when they left the ship, the Outcasts turned south instead of east, and fell in behind a long line of other teams. The line wound up and down the rolling hills for nearly three hoz before opening up in a vast, closely mown meadow that was skirted on one side by an enormous structure of grandstands. It reminded Ron of the stands lining the main straightaway at the Indianapolis 500.

Just as it was yesterday, those seats were filled to capacity, but this time Ron caught sight of half a dozen floating balls placed equidistant over the grass. He knew they were Cnauts (Cybernetic-nimble-autonomous-utilitarian-technicians) used by the Kreete for innumerous reasons, but he couldn't spot their function here just yet.

Just as the previous day, the participants were paraded in front of the crowd before being sent to a holding area that was close by but out of sight. This time at least, the cells were more like wooden corrals instead of cages, so they weren't as foreboding or claustrophobic. Their walls were made of ten-foot-long poles driven into the ground and lashed together in staggering lines so one overlapped the other and formed a nearly solid barrier. It wasn't exactly like being in prison, but more of an effort to keep the opposing teams from quarreling and possibly fighting, especially after the first two rounds of scores had been posted. The "head-games" between the teams were just getting rolling and tempers were sure to get shorter and shorter as they went along.

Each group could hear the boasts and claims of many others, and insults and challenges shot through the area nearly nonstop, but that was the extent of it.

Draake kept his team quiet and calm through all the hype with his usual intimidating nature and uncompromising rigidity to order and peace...and for once, Ron was glad of it. Wasting time and energy on insignificant rhetoric was irritating and unproductive.

Once more the captains of each team were gathered for a brief time to witness the lottery. The order of play was drawn and announced in front of the assembly, and then the next phase began.

Draake returned with the designation chip which he held up to show his men.

"Fifteen!" was all he said before taking his seat on the ground inside their pen.

Fraidze hated the sparing use of words that Draake so often metered out, but what else was there to say really? A pep talk would have been nice, he considered before remembering exactly how the team had been picked. Each man was a survivor, pure and simple. They would work together only toward a mutual goal of protecting their families, not out of friendship or any bond of loyalty.

Less than a billot later, they were called, so out they went wondering in earnest now what they would face. The Benoits moved as usual...slow and plodding...never expending any extra energy, and that had an opposite effect on the humans. The men were nervous and jittery, except for Ron of course, who took up the forward position. His movement was smooth and fluid. He walked onto the field as if he were strolling about a shopping market, and was openly curious of the day's fanfare.

They soon approached the selected area where Larshe awaited them, and paused for his instructions.

"Team Draake. As you are sure to know by now, you start this event in second place by a mere two points. I wish you well in this next challenge.

"Today you face the "Dulsake Expulsiour". (It translated roughly to the Earthly equivialent of the Hammer Throw) Each participant will be weighed and then paired up with a calibrated dulsake that is exactly one third your body mass, as calculated by the Kreete ruling authority. The athlete will take the dulsake by any point they wish and hurl it as far as they can. There will be adjustments to the distance made as such;

"1: For every peor away from the centerline, the same amount of distance will be deducted from the length of the throw. For instance, if your toss is a hundred peors, but you are off the center by twenty peors, your overall throw will be eighty peors. Understand?"

Everyone nodded, but the humans inwardly chuckled that anyone could toss a third their body mass a hundred peors. However, they then considered the Benoits, and they stopped their mirth.

"Everyone must compete, but only the longest five tosses will count. You each are allowed two attempts...you may compete in any order you wish...and you may begin whenever you are ready."

High up in the stands that day, Cache vibrated with anxiety yet again. Once more she studied the wagering pages and had decisions to make. She had won four million credits so far and they showed in her bank as available to bet. She saw the Benoits were favored to win the event individually, but the team was sitting at ten to one odds. Ron however, being rather slight of stature compared to so many of the other humanoids in the competition, was once more given an extremely small chance at even placing.

By the time Larshe had completed his instructions, she had decided. She put one million credits on the team to win, and three million on Ron to win the individual. She'd never seen anyone with greater power for their size than that man, nor better coordination. Plus; it wasn't her money she was gambling with anyway.

She was sitting between two strangers...both men...and so she drew their attention from the activities on the field quite easily. She was wearing a rather snug-fitting, emerald sundress that was exceedingly short. (Her wardrobe had taken on a rather Josy-like attitude recently, which the opposite gender seemed to enjoy immensely) They both let out whistles at her wagers.

"Wow!" the man on her right...a Galation named Forster...commented. "For that kind of money, you could buy your own team!"

"Yeah," acknowledged the guy to her left...a fellow named Pritlars. He was a rich socialite from Ruutarzy, sitting with his wife and three young daughters. "You planning on becoming a sponsor?" he added.

Cache was confused. She'd planned to keep her word to Jazz and stay out of the competition all together, but her curiosity drove her forward. "Whatever do you mean?"

"Oh, well, if someone of your monetary enthusiasm were to wish it, they can become what's called a 'sponsor' of a single participant, or of his entire team. They can donate funds that might provide better food, better medical care...which they all need the most...or even upgrade their transportation to the planets. Many teams struggle with the costs of such things just to have a slim chance that their men might accomplish something grand enough to help their worlds. The Lords always reward high achievement in the Games."

Cache was intrigued. She would do anything if it would help Ron even a small amount.

"How do I apply for such a thing?"

Just then, Pritlars' wife drew his attention back to the event with an "accidental elbow" to the ribs. She was a pretty young woman who was used to having the lion's share of attention in a crowd, and she shot Cache a quick glare of distrust as she apologized to her husband.

"Oh, sorry, Dear...but they're starting," she said.

"Tell you later," he mouthed quickly before facing forward and leaning pointedly to his wife's side.

Draake strolled forward where he was scanned on a metal disk set near the throwing pad.

A Cnaut in the shape of a sled glided forward a moment later carrying what looked like a giant mace. It was a basketball-sized metal sphere with foot-long spikes protruding from its surface, and it had a six-foot-long chain welded to it which had links as thick as Ron's thumb.

Draake picked the ball up by the spikes and started to carry it to the pad. After barely two steps however, he halted and turned to Larshe.

"Your scales are off!" he proclaimed in the grinding voice his team had grown so used to. He then dropped the device where is sunk the spikes completely into the ground.

"What? That isn't likely. We just...oh, wait. I understand. My mistake, sir. I neglected to tell you that the Lords have decided to amend the calibration to include a formula that accounts for the advantage heavy-worlders would normally have over lighter gravity dwellers.

"WHAT?" growled all three Benoits in unison. "So we have an edge in this one event," Draake fumed. "What about all the ones we'll be penalized for because of our density...like the water events, and those in the snow, or high altitude?"

"I'm afraid I have no recourse, sir. That is the will of the Lords."

"Those lousy, dragen dung-eaters!" he hissed, his hands vibrating from the anger churning inside.

Draake then picked up the mace again and went to the launch pad quickly. He wanted to use the pent up anger to aid his attempt. Grasping the end rig in his massive hands, Draake yanked the heavy, spiked ball off the mat with a grunt and set it orbiting him with an ever increasing velocity.

He made three mighty spins before hurling the hammer at an angle that Ron guessed would be close to perfect for maximum distance. Draake had been through all this more than once before. He had actually trained at it.

The giant, ghastly weapon soared through the air as the crowd exploded with excitement and anticipation that this would be the winning toss. Everyone in the audience had scoured the players' information crystals and knew the power of the enormous Benoits.

By the time it struck the ground, the hover-sled was back in position with another device of exactly the same proportions, but Draake didn't hurry at all, waiting for the show of his distance. He was off the line two peors at least.

"Eighty-seven peors?" he bellowed in disgust when it popped onto the board. "May the Creator eat their slimy, sharte-filled livers!" he cursed out loud while glaring straight at the Kreete onlookers.

They just met his jibe with gruesome grins of superiority.

Ron thought he'd done incredibly well, only able to guess at the weight of that beefy weapon he'd slung. He stepped over to Al who was shaking his head too.

"What were you expecting him to throw?" Ron asked quietly.

The colossal being hesitated before replying, not seeing any reason Draake would mind him answering. "At least one-twenty-five on this world. The Kreete team will average somewhere in the mid-nineties."

"Holy crap!" Ron said, no longer wondering why Draake was so disappointed.

His next attempt was closer on target and two peors longer, so he walked away with a score of ninety-one, still cursing the Lords in low, grating words.

The two others from the ultra-heavy planet of Benoi did almost as well as Draake, but then the humans stepped up and it was a wholly different story. Dex went first.

"Creator damn them all!" he exclaimed when he heaved the spiny ball from the sled. He carried it over to the flat launch pad and sat it down, taking great care with the prongs as they were unnecessarily sharp and his thighs already oozed blood in six places.

He'd watched the Benoits closely, so he knew the general theory of the event, and he copied their actions now. He got the ball in the air and whirled around twice, angling the attitude of the orbit as he spun until on the third round, he planted his foot and let fly with a mighty grunt.

Up the contraption of ball and chain went, but with decidedly less thrust than his teammates...and less accuracy. The long spikes locked the mace in the dirt instantly, and then the crowd reacted...with laughter! Dex had missed the target line by more than the length of his throw.

"Why you son of a dragen whore!" he swore at himself without looking back at his team. His embarrassment could be read well enough in the red hue of his dark face.

He quickly returned to the sled and yanked the second device off it, still mumbling under his breath. Then he pulled up a handful of the green grass and eyeballed the range. When he figured out the desired release angle, he placed the wad of grass on the white surface where he could see it easily.

A lita later, the second weapon was whirling through the air as he took a couple spins just to orient himself with the target. Once he felt comfortable that the mace would go where he wanted it, he started spinning in earnest. This time when he released the broad ring, it went higher, longer, and straighter than he really expected, slamming down barely one foot from the centerline...and seventy-nine peors down range!

"YES!" he hissed, feeling much manlier from his success.

Fraidze followed Dex and used his grass-target technique too, producing an impressive eighty-three peors throw. It actually traveled ninety, but was off target seven peors. His second attempt yielded eighty-eight, and he roared out his thrill of success in a long howl. The crowd too, cheered mightily at his exhibition.

Next was Bart who took several practice spins to judge the weight before committing to a throw. He chose the extra caution over the chance he might repeat his embarrassing failure of the first day. His practice paid off too, when he delivered a toss of eighty-nine peors.

Ron watched with great scrutiny, every little action of each of the men, looking for the most efficient technique. There were subtle differences in each of them, but he felt confident he knew what to do.

Ron was the final man of their team, and so witnessed each score as it was tallied, but unlike the other three humans, he wasn't as surprised that the men could nearly equal the toss of the Benoits. The sliding scale that the Kreete had so conveniently put in place would have virtually eliminated any and all advantages they had...dragging them down to the normal range with such insanely massive equipment. In his mind, that weight-calculated method did appear to show a good level of accuracy...of leveling out the overall results...even though the Kreete held the highest marks again. He did of course wish his team could have made greater strides ahead by allowing the Ultras free rein.

He took Bart's attitude with the preparations, getting the feel of the load before actually beginning. His mace was much smaller than the Benoits, obviously, but the degree of launch would have to be the same, so he pictured that in his mind as he tested the device. Since his merging with Kaskle, Ron had always had an uncanny sense of direction, so he brushed the grass off the platform so it wouldn't distract him.

When he felt prepped, he allowed his feelings about the Kreete to surface. They were vile, murderous, corrupt bullies with a severe case of "God complex", and he loathed them thoroughly. That forced his adrenaline to build. A moment later he had the mace at arms' length, pulling as hard as it took to stay balanced while increasing speed. One, two, three, launch! He fell back hard...nearly off the platform...before he righted himself and found his throw still arching upward. It was a good one. His eyes calculated the angles in a blink, and he knew he would be pleased.

"Ninety four!" Larshe exclaimed before he remembered his position of moderator...of unbiased neutrality.

Ron retrieved the next one and decided something instantly. He would go for an all-out throw that would hold nothing back. While he loaded the final device onto the platform, he took a few moments with his eyes closed, and recalled the dungeons of Huinrag. He forced himself to intentionally remember what he'd spent the past two complete cycles trying to forget...and the surge of adrenaline in his body welled even higher.

As he gripped the ring, he pictured the battle at Huinrag as well, when the loathsome villains the Kreete call warriors bated him out into a trap by throwing human children from the massive wall of the city. By the time Ron had spun twice, he felt like the mace was getting lighter...his fury still building. He whipped past the third revolution so fast that everyone thought he'd gotten confused...but they were wrong.

On the fourth round, Ron's body was nearly a blur of motion, and the pull on the iron ring was heavy once more, the centrifugal force compounding with every moment of acceleration.

Draake started to warn the others to take cover, afraid Ron had lost control, but then the man he'd called "Itsu" released a mind-shattering wail of absolute rage that carried him through the fifth revolution. That cry was so compelling, so eerie, so terrifying that it received a sudden and total reaction from every soul around him, and those in the stands as well...complete and utter silence!

Then the mace was airborne...and every watching being in the stands, as well as on deep-space ships and other worlds, held their breaths. The thing flew...and flew...and flew!

Back at the launch pad, Ron hadn't lost his balance like the first time either; his focus was that well maintained. Instead, he stopped his spin in one more revolution and stood there with his face to the sky and the call of the Aredanz shrieking from his lips for the entire universe to hear...and to fear. He voiced the challenge of the mountain folk with all the contempt and hate of the Kreete he could muster...and in that moment, he openly wished they would accept!

No one shifted their feet. No one spoke. No one even blinked. Time stood still as that bestial call seemed to literally push that heavy chunk of iron farther and farther away by its sheer ferocity.

And when at last that deadly assembly of spiny ball and heavy chain struck the ground, it sunk half out of sight, burrowing down into the soft, grassy turf with its tremendous inertia.

The board lit up with the readings from the multiple Cnauts, each computing and quadruple-checking the findings in a nanolita. The reading was 126 peors...perfectly centered on the line!

There was a small window of time following the throw that stood apart from reality...as if every chrono around the galaxy had all stopped...and it was deathly quiet. The reverberations of Ron's bestial wail echoed off into the countryside like a cannon shot, until it finally dissipated into the wind and was gone.

The following silent pause of no less than five full litas could only be designated as doubt...when everyone saw but couldn't truly believe the obvious. And then the doubt turned into something different...joy...no...it was far beyond that...it was an astonishing release of unbridled exhilaration!

The stands practically exploded with excitement never seen before at the Triad Games. It was so loud that the grass halfway across the field bent away from the tidal wave of sound.

Draake and his fellow Benoits were never ones to show excitement...with good reasons. The life their people led at the "mercy" of the Kreete was far from anything to be happy about. But they all looked with profound respect at the man who stood before them at that moment. It was akin to open awe. Draake even let a horrid grin slip out before it was replaced by his usual façade of abject apathy.

Ron was still in the red zone, his body heaving from the recent task, and vibrating from the fury he'd called upon to accomplish it. The veil of sheer rage still filled his vision as those around him began to celebrate, and it was a good thing that they didn't try to include him in there jovialities, for their sakes. All he wanted right then was battle!

Ron glared at the lower levels of the stands, watching his bitter enemies as they stared back at him with their empty, silver eyes. They were not crying foul this time, not by a long shot. In fact, fully three-quarters of them were on their feet like the human members of the audience...not screaming and cheering, but clearly astounded and obviously impressed.

They had something else beginning to build in their thoughts too...and it wasn't doubts about the fairness of the competition or legitimacy of the accomplishment. It was doubt of an entirely other sort.

Some of the Kreete soldiers who were then leaning forward against the innermost barrier wall that separated them from the competitors strained hard against their desire to leap the railing. They wanted badly to answer Ron's horrific challenge and attack the mere man who'd just set a new record that eclipsed the finest toss their kind had ever put forth. But they had a completely different thought than awe. That's because many of them had seen something like that before...seen a lowly, puny man accomplish what could not be done. And they had heard that otherworldly, primordial cry before too!

Those suspicious few snapped their heads up hastily and scanned the scoreboard again, reading the competitor's information very carefully. What they saw was "Itsu". That name meant nothing...but then they read his homeworld. Straight away the planet's identity brought up another moniker that was branded into their minds. They were searching for the name, but not of a man...of an animal...of a stupendous fiend of incomparable skills and unfathomable ferocity. They were searching for Shartae; the terror of the Retribution Games! (Many of Ron's bouts had been illegally recorded and circulated around the Triad's empire during his five santaris of captivity) But it couldn't be. He was sealed away on that rock known as Caron! No ship could move in or out of the planet's barrier...yet here he stood. That's when their ash gray colored skin dropped a few shades to bone white!

As words were exchanged hurriedly down the ranks of the Kreete, Ron's heated state cooled enough to allow him to walk calmly away. But when his teammates saw the glare still smoldering in his eyes, they gave him a generous amount of space. They'd seen that look a few times before, when he was forced into lethal combat. His countenance was shrouded with the look of death.

"May the Guardian above us bless that man!" Pritlars finally said when he could calm himself enough to sit again.

Cache was trembling again too, so exhilarated that she couldn't stop grinning. "That's my Ron!" she thought.

"Have you ever seen anything like that?" his wife queried. She was so flushed that her lightly tanned skin appeared badly sunburned, and she was fanning herself with her hands.

Ron's fearsome vocal release often had that effect on people...especially women.

Cache though, had a clear look of familiarity in her expression that caught the woman's eye.

"Do you 'know' him?" she asked straight out, leaning over to better see around her husband.

He heard the question, and the tone his wife had used, and so he snapped his head around so fast to see her answer that Cache giggled.

"Well...I..."

"Holy Creator of the Realm! You do...don't you?" Pritlars whispered harshly, his eyes suddenly dancing across the crowd to see if anyone else had heard.

"I'm Ishimar," the woman said excitedly, reaching across her husband to lay her fingertips on Cache's arm. "Is it true?"

Cache was one among more than half a million spectators, and they were far from the Kreete area, so she saw no real harm in admitting it. She did glance about nonetheless, just to see how many others might be overhearing them. Most everyone was still talking, standing, and celebrating that fantastic display though, so she nodded just a tiny bit.

"That's it, then!" Ishimar stated bluntly. "You're coming with us to our suite tonight...I insist!"

Pritlars shot a look of surprise at her that made her quickly recoil. "Oh..." she corrected, "uh...sorry...I mean if she wouldn't mind, of course!"

His expression softened at that and so he turned back to Cache.

She paused a moment, but was very intrigued, and really wouldn't mind having someone explain a great many things to her, so she agreed.

"After the day's event is concluded," she stipulated.

"Of course, but you must be our guest for the rest of the day," Ishimar continued excitedly. "We have..."

She went on for a while about the lunch they'd planned, and other niceties she wanted to share. Cache got the impression she would eventually beg for Ron's introduction at some point, but she would just have to deal with that later.

Ron followed the Benoits and the rest of his crew to a new area of containment...one where they could witness the rest of the competition. Those already there kept quiet, having just seen their best efforts crushed by Draake's team.

They were all fed and watered as the other twenty five teams took their turns, but when the Kreete squad entered the field, all previous competitors leaped to their feet. They all wanted to see the reaction.

The Kreete team members were well disciplined and appeared highly trained, but when they caught a glimpse of the scoreboard, they stopped dead in their tracks, with half of them pointing at the highest position and exchanging words.

Grayle hurried forward to the moderator.

"What is this?" he demanded.

Larshe was expecting that exact response from the Lords' team, so he remained placid. "What do you mean?"

"Who has made a toss that far...and how was that achieved? We have a system in place that..."

"Would make it impossible for any other being to best your men?" Larshe finished for him.

Grayle cast a menacing glare at the fellow, but he wasn't moved. "Well, it did a fine job against the Benoits...if that is what you mean. They were held to the low nineties."

Grayle then became confused. "Then what creature holds that top position?"

Larshe felt enormously grateful to be the one to tell him. "A human man," he stated simply. "One I believe you are familiar with."

Grayle considered the claim as utter hogwash. No mere "man" could best a Kreete warrior. And it was true that the Kreete were far more powerful than Ron...if it was Kreete to man. But what they couldn't get a grasp of was that when it came down to the simple formula of strength-to-weight; Ron Allison was in a league of his own.

"That is impossible!" he growled.

"You may review the recordings at your leisure, of course, my Lord Kreete...following the match. Right now however, you must compete."

"How was it done?"

The rules forbade Larshe from answering that question for fear of giving away an advantageous technique, but he knew the information could not be used. No one had ever even tried it! In fact, he was so certain it would in fact be quite demoralizing, he answered.

"He took five full revolutions!" Larshe said with clear admiration in his voice. "The speed he generated was unbelievable! And he struck the target line exactly!"

Grayle shot a look to the stands, searching out his own sponsor. That individual was Trovine Qaard, the Reaper class warrior who'd argued for Ron's disqualification in the first event. He'd provided vast monies, lavish training facilities, and incredible incentives...everything Grayle had asked for in fact...to produce the finest team Kreete had ever assembled. When their eyes met, Grayle could feel the burning intensity of the massive soldier's stare all the way across the field.

He looked again at the scoreboard and couldn't quite stifle a quick tremble of absolute hopelessness. After yesterday's embarrassment, he was expecting a resounding, commanding recovery, but it didn't look good now. He knew his men's abilities well, and to tie Draake's team's average score would take a personal best by each of them. Too, he'd very much hoped to have his own name at the top of that board on this day...to prove his leadership was worth the price he'd demanded. That was obviously not going to happen.

"126 peors!" he grumbled as he headed back to his men.

They ended up performing very well, but came up short by eight peors overall. It was just too much of a gap to close. And to further humiliate them, the Kreete team fell once again to second place in the overall competition!

When it was all done, the screens filled once more with the image of Ron's last throw. They showed it numerous times from several different perspectives.

Thousands of hoz away, floating effortlessly in space aboard the _Confarii_ , Protarsen Ghien turned as white as a ghost. He didn't show outrage, or surprise, or cunning, or insolence. He just showed fear!

Arsisi, however, turned beet red as she once again stared at Ron's incomparable features. His muscles were prominent, even through his uniform, and his flawless movement was truly awe-inspiring, but what had her cobalt blue orbs entranced was the mind-shattering, bestial roar he'd released along with the hammer. She'd heard that before! It was very far away, and over a cycle in the past, but she was certain she'd seen that fantastic, unassailable man at another venue...on another world. He'd been covered in grime and blood, beaten to varying shades of black and blue, and his face had been mostly hidden with a thick, black beard, but it was him!

Instantly, she began a fight against her obedience conditioning, it telling her to inform her master of what she knew. But somewhere deep inside her she refused, convincing herself that she could be wrong...that a mistaken identification might result in even further disgrace to her lord...so she held her tongue. Even so, she stared at Itsu and knew without a doubt that it was he...it was the beastman from the Caronian Retribution Games. It was Shartae the Invincible!

Without a word to anyone in the room, Protarsen slowly shuffled his way to the exit. A billot later, after filing his report, he jettisoned himself out an airlock as penance for his abject failure.

Back planet-side; "We're winning!" Fraidze shouted with glee when they were all safely back in the ship. He and the other two human men were ready to celebrate, but Ron and the Benoits were not so jubilant.

"It will not last," Ron said softly, his deep voice rolling like distant thunder.

Fraidze, Dex, and Bart all stared at him annoyingly...the kill-joy of their party.

"Come on, man! Can't you see that we've totally taken them by surprise?" Fraidze said, trying to get Ron into the state of euphoria he was in.

"We have embarrassed them deeply with these early victories," Ron explained solemnly. "Tomorrow, they will take their revenge. We should all get as much rest as we can." He then walked to his quarters in silence. He wasn't afraid of what that revenge might be, but he didn't want to spend time discussing it either. There was no way of knowing, and growing anxious about it would solve nothing. They would find out at sunrise.

### Chapter Twenty-four

### Tug of War

Day 4:

Following another three hoz march in the Ruutarzy dawn, the teams returned to the same venue as the hammer throw, but Draake's team was directed to a different holding cell than before. It was as far from the Kreete team as physically possible, in the very back corner. That was done to keep some modicum of order in the growing tension. Every team knew the score, and every team wanted to know exactly who these supermen were who could challenge the Lords.

The captains went out to the lottery area once more in total silence, each sizing up the other team leaders as usual, and all keeping their distance from Grayle and Draake. This time though, when the officials pulled a number from one shining metal urn, their assistants withdrew two team insignias from another. They recorded the pairing and notified the corresponding captains about who they were to face, but refused to inform those leaders what the task would be.

As before, when the time arrived, Draake led his group out into the sunshine and toward the moderator's position. It seemed very orderly and routine to them by then, but that was not the case to those looking on.

At the instant the massive Ultras were seen, the crowd exploded once more, snapping every member of the audience to their feet immediately and filling the air with chants and whistles.

"Itsuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!" roared from their lips in synchronicity, startling Ron's teammates a bit because they thought at first that they were being booed. It wasn't until the fourth time the crowd bellowed Ron's new name that they understood...and then the men all smacked him on the back admiringly. The Benoits simply ignored it all.

"Looks like you got a fan-club!" Fraidze told Ron with a grin from ear to ear.

Ron wanted to just let it pass, but the strategist in him saw a chance to start something...and a good public relations campaign was nothing to sneeze at. You just never know where it could lead. So Ron stopped for a few moments and raised his hands to the audience, waving at them as if he were back in College in front of his home crowd. He slowly turned until he'd faced each section, and then he went back to business.

"That's bad-ass, Ron," Dex told him, laughing and shaking his head. "You know how many of those ladies just wet themselves?"

Ron rolled his eyes and hurried along until he caught up with Brome.

The wide field was now divided into seven sections, each completely hidden from the others by holographic barriers. The Outcasts made their way to the fifth section where they were joined by their opponents, the Pesstrousians.

In each segregated area, barely thirty-five peors from the stands, lay a deep pit which was seven peors wide and three across. It was half filled with some opaque liquid that gave off a rather odious aroma. Off to the side of the pit was a long, heavy rope lying on the grass. It had a bright red ball affixed at its center.

Everyone there immediately understood what the game was that day, but a holo-version of Larshe explained the rules to each pairing anyway...simultaneously.

"Team Draake and team Natoniae," Larshe said, giving the names of each captain in his section as if standing right there, "this is the competition known as Befarra; the Power Pull. It is a group event utilizing all seven of your team members. One team will take one end of the rope and the other will be across from them. The red sphere will be positioned in the center of the pit. When ready, I will announce the beginning, and when the center sphere reaches the edge of the pit, the team on the side closest to it will be the winner.

"Now the pit is filled with Corustine swamp mud. It is extremely foul-smelling and will cling to those it touches for days. If your team wishes to concede, merely release the rope and you will not experience the mud.

"Also, there is a built-in time limit. If a stalemate appears, where neither team can move the sphere for more than a half bort, the rope will begin sending a charge through it that will increase in severity until those gripping the rope release. If you do not, it is strong enough to kill the average man.

"Understand?"

All nodded consent.

"Any questions?"

None were asked, so they moved into position.

The team opposite Draake's was contrived of humanoids from the planet Pesstrous. They were good-sized men and very broad across the chest. They wore their long, green-tinged hair braided behind them and had uniforms that looked like many others...short-sleeved brown shirts made of cloth and darker brown colored trousers with tall boots.

Draake took the forward position followed by Ron, Bart, Dex, and Fraidze. Al and Brome were their anchors. With that lineup, Ron didn't see how any team could beat them...and for most of the day, he was right.

They nearly yanked the Pesstrousians into the muck with the first tug, but they released the rope in time to save themselves. The Outcasts then went to wait in their pen. The match had lasted barely two litas.

A billot later, the captains of the winning teams watched again as the drawing for order started over. Twenty-one teams were left, and so the next round went much quicker.

This time Draake and his group faced the team from Loaklinty, a world heavier than Caron, but not quite a class ten planet. Ron and his teammates enjoyed the same outcome, although the Loaklintians lasted almost four litas.

Round three brought them out to meet the team from Tyllisone...a class 10.3 world. They were large, fearsome looking fellows with arms as beefy as Ron's legs, and each one stood about three inches taller than Ron. The rope looked different too.

"Now it gets interesting," Fraidze said as he eased into a position at Ron's shoulder. "I've read about this."

The virtual Larshe stepped in to address the new twist.

"As we are in the third round, the stakes get higher, and so do the risks. The rope has been changed to one which binds itself to the user so they cannot release. If your team selects to do battle, one of you will find yourselves in the mud. Also, since you have made it this far, even if you lose, you may challenge a group you have not faced because from this stage forward it will be double elimination."

The teams both elected to continue, and when they squeezed the new rope, bindings enveloped their hands and wrists. Ron didn't like that...and neither did his teammates.

"Begin!" shouted Larshe, and the two-inch-thick braided line snapped taught instantly, looking as straight as a steel rod. The red ball in the center slid nearly a peor quickly, with just a slight vibration up and down at high frequency, but that didn't last long.

The surge went to Draake's side straightaway, but when Brome and Al both back-pedaled for a new position, the Tyllisone team was waiting. Ron instantly guessed that they'd intentionally given up that first pull to catch Draake's side off guard, and it had worked marvelously. In an instant, Fraidze, Brome, and Al were off balanced and well out of their power position. If it hadn't been for Draake and the other men...mostly Draake, Ron conceded...they would have been dragged forward and into the pit. However, the captain of the Outcasts was very sharp and keenly alert, so when he felt the slack behind him and saw the quick, flashing smiles across the way, he knew what was coming. When the surge came, he slowed it as much as he could, knowing Ron, Dex, and Bart would react as he did and try to lock out the move, but the Tyllisones were too strong and threatened to swing the momentum beyond the range they could recover. Risking everything, Draake suddenly made a quick hop forward, giving up a small concession of turf, before digging his huge, elephant-like feet into the unbroken ground barely two feet from the pit's lip. Ron, Dex, and Bart were quick to copy his action, and luckily ended up in the anchoring foothold notch the man in front of them had already created.

That desperate move forced two things. First; because they could not release the rope and grab a new handhold, they could no longer swiftly haul in that two-inch-thick cord, and that disrupted the strategy they'd used so effectively in the preceding matches. Second; was that now the Tyllisones had to physically move back, and that was the weak point of their game. They had to move with their feet, and that took time and coordination. Balance and strength were suddenly very much tied together.

Draake thought quickly, and barked out an order. "One, two, and seven...LOCK!"

It was nothing they'd planned out, but under the circumstances, they immediately understood his meaning. Draake, Ron, and Brome dug in with all they had and locked their spines and knees in as strong a position as they could manage. Simultaneously the others desperately scrambled for better footing while still pulling as hard as they could.

The Tyllisones suddenly surged anew, but the three anchors on Draake's team slowed their momentum considerably...gaining valuable time for the rest to get set before they gave way.

The red sphere moved steadily away from Draake Tarbold, albeit slowly, but when all seven of the Outcasts were once more pulling together, the red ball slammed to an abrupt halt.

"Three, four, five, and six...LOCK!" Draake bellowed. Then he, Ron, and Brome took a half step back. "PULL!" he ordered, and the might of the giant Benoits proved itself. They gained a full foot of what they'd lost!

The other team was yelling orders as well, but the members of Draake's team only heard him.

"One, four, and seven...LOCK!"

Another powerful surge tried to break their footholds, but it was not to be. Two Benoi warriors dug deeply into the turf were as solid as a ship's anchor and could not be moved by the Tyllisone team. Ron, Bart, Dex, and Al took another half step back and "PULL!" roared their captain.

That proved too much for the Tyllisones. Draake saw them give at the waist just enough.

"MOVE NOW!" he ordered, sending his feet churning the ground in a frenzy.

The turf by then had been torn into a steady line of ridges that they each used to work their way backward without slipping. First the Outcasts combined their strength and delivered savage lunge rearward, and then they were on their feet, struggling to stay up while their bodies were at an eighty degree angle to the ground, still pulling mightily. The red ball jumped a peor, then two, and then...

The Tyllisones flew into the muck a moment later, and the rope released everyone immediately.

Draake's team members all tumbled to the ground afterward, their bodies trembling from the strain and the near catastrophic loss. Even the giants looked ruffled from the struggle. It had been close...too close!

The crowd cheered raucously at the conclusion of the match and kept it up for several borts while Draake's squad untangled themselves and got to their feet. They then strolled lazily back to their pen, the men breathing deeply and trying to recover the feeling in their hands. Even Ron, who could swing a sword for hours in battle, felt the waves of rushing adrenaline quaking his body. The Benoits appeared back to normal though, and hardly seemed to have felt the stress.

The men began to wonder how many more clashes like that they could endure, but the catering service arrived just then and soon they were all enjoying an enormous meal. That distraction and revitalization...followed immediately by a long nap...restored much of their strength and confidence.

Round four paired them up with another heavy-worlder group...the Travalians. They were tough, but Draake's band worked well together that time, and though it took longer, they slowly won the advantage and walked away clear of the mud once more.

When that stage was done, only two teams remained undefeated. Draake's was one and Ron knew who the other would be. Larshe announced that there would be a two billot rest period before the final match, so everyone...contestants and fans alike...took their leave of the stadium.

In those stands, Cache Kuar went with her new friends again to the upscale dining facility set aside for the wealthiest patrons, and enjoyed drinks and a meal. She was draped in a new dress which was fuchsia in color, had a plunging neckline, and was bare of midriff. (When she walked through the stands, it was like a rolling wave of heads all swinging her way)

Ishimar and Rosche (her husband) continued to grill Cache for every detail she would offer about that wild-man from Caron. Apparently they'd come up with a dozen new questions from the previous days' inquisition. And when Rosche stepped away to relieve himself, just like Cache had anticipated, Ishimar began begging her for a private audience with Ron.

Cache of course, had no way of arranging that, due to the strict rules about keeping the contestants completely separated from the audience, but Ishimar was so dejected that Cache eventually told her that when the entire Games were over, she would do what she could to arrange it. That made the lovely young heiress almost giddy, clinging to her new acquaintance like old chums as they headed back to the stadium.

Cache had been gambling all day, but not enlarging her purse too much more because the odds were always heavily in favor of the giant Benoits. When they returned to their seats however, the Outcasts were viewed once more as the underdogs. Cache wanted badly to bet on Ron and his fellows, but something inside her held her back. In single contests, she would have gone with her chosen team, but she knew the Kreete too well to think a head-to-head match could possibly be legitimate. Therefore, she passed on the wager, drawing a sly nod of understanding from her new friends.

"So," Ishimar said softly, her eyes glancing about for straining ears, "I see you feel much like the rest of us concerning the 'fairness' of the competition."

Cache smiled back politely. "I am sure that I do not know what you are referring to."

Ishimar grinned and winked back at her.

Two wonderful billots of rest went by much too fast for the humans on the Outcasts team, and then the Kreete squad moved into position across from them for the title match.

The first thing that caught Ron's eye was the Kreete's boots. They weren't the standard issue. He spotted something odd at the heel of them, so he watched with great scrutiny. It took a couple more strides before he saw it.

"Son of a bi..." he hissed.

"What?" Draake quickly asked. "You see something?"

"They're wearing anchor-boots!" Ron whispered.

"What? What's that?"

"Look at the very back of their heels. Every time they step, the pressure actuates a trigger and the entire back portion slides down at least three inches...like a shovel. Those bastards won't be slipping, that's for sure."

Draake released a low, rumbling sound from within his thick chest while he considered what to do.

"Are you going to protest?" Dex asked.

"No. If they are wearing them in full view like that, they must have made some clause in the rules for them...a clause not known to everyone else of course. We will just have to deal with it."

Ron heard the resignation in his voice, so he just filed in behind the giant. That disadvantage may not thwart them all by itself. After all, they hadn't been slipping either. The well-used troughs were packed hard and gave excellent traction.

When both teams were bound to the rope like before however, and Draake's team was settling into position, they all found out exactly what strategy the Kreete had planned.

"NO!" called the Kreete captain as he watched his opponents preparing. "We call for neutral ground!"

Larshe instantly looked frazzled, and his face went bright red. He too could tell they were up to something, but he was obligated to follow the rules.

"Outcasts! Would you please stand and move to this alternate location?"

"Why?" demanded Draake Tarbold. "What is going on?"

"The Lords have invoked the 'Neutrality' clause," he said, pulling out a small disk that instantly displayed the pertinent rule. "It states that for the final match...to determine a true winner...no preexisting advantages must exist. Thereby, the contestants must move to a fresh section of undisturbed ground."

"I've never heard of that!" Al Pope growled from the back.

"It is seldom used...but it is written into the Triad laws of fairness."

"Laws of fairness?" Ron scoffed loud enough for the Kreete to hear him clearly. "They wouldn't know where to begin!"

"Are you lodging a complaint?" Larshe asked nervously...his eyes clearly full of dread.

Again Draake accepted the underhanded advantage without repudiation. He'd faced the Kreete before and knew they would certainly have covered themselves in their bi-laws.

"No," he said calmly.

They all stood and moved a few steps over.

Up in the stands, the entire crowd was groaning and grumbling...locked onto their holo-screens to understand what was happening.

Cache Kuar felt her stomach twist, her fingers clamp into balled fists, and her eyes grow strained.

"You have one bort to ready yourselves."

Both sides then began kicking at the ground, digging into the turf to find a solid platform to use their legs to the optimum.

"What the hell?" Ron said after slamming his heel into the ground a few dozen times. The top three inches were ordinary grass and soft topsoil, but then he'd hit a layer that wouldn't give at all.

"Thirty litas!" Larshe announced, watching the clock on the scoreboard ticking downward.

"Hey," Dex called softly down the ranks, "something's not right! I can't get down into the dirt! It's hard as stone!"

"Yeah!" agreed Fraidze and Bart, and then Brome.

Draake slammed his colossal feet into the hard-packed earth and grunted. Then he looked over at the Kreete. They weren't having any trouble at all.

"Ten litas!"

With their hands bound to the rope, no one could let go of it to investigate what was wrong with the dirt, but Ron rolled his body over and lay his arm in the shallow trough they'd dug. It was cold...really cold!

"Five, four..."

He sat back up quickly and got his feet into position as best he could.

"The ground's been frozen!" he called up and down the line. "They set us up!"

"One! Begin!" announced Larshe.

Suddenly they had no more time for talk. The snap against the rope was like a locomotive straining against them, and crying foul wouldn't help. The two teams both went to a lock position instantly, moving the red sphere barely three inches to the Kreete's side.

The four men and three Benoits held their positions as if made of granite, knowing the Kreete could not advance theirs, but fearing they would not either. They breathed deep and controlled breaths, conserving their strength as much as possible and hoping the ground would thaw in time. The stalemate remained for several borts, both sides waiting for a slight show of weariness from the other, but none occurred.

There was a slight change under Ron, as if whatever they'd used to flash-freeze the turf had begun to lose its hold, but he was dragging harder and harder at the air. It was as if the oxygen was being sucked out of him.

After five long, agonizing borts of virtually no movement, the secondary system began to kick in. Ron felt a burning in his hands first, and then it moved higher. It was much like the "null wand" the Kreete used for torture, giving the sensation that his fingers, hands, and wrists were on fire!

He could feel himself getting weaker too...and quickly...the energy draining out of him.

"We have to move!" he barked at Draake.

The huge fellow jumped at his words, then shook his massive head hard. "I...can't...think. Can't breathe!"

That sparked a thought for Ron. "Carbon dioxide!" he screamed in his mind but was too winded to speak out loud. "They quick froze the ground with liquid carbon dioxide! Now, as it leaches out, it's displacing the oxygen around us! Those sorry, dragen cowar..."

"Something is wrong!" Cache quickly deduced. "Come on, Ron," she muttered. "Why have you not already surged?" She was on her feet by then, as was nearly every other member of the audience, but instead of cheering, her expression morphed from excited to confused, and then to apprehensive. "The clock is ticking!"

"Move!" Ron finally ordered, taking control of the team.

The men weren't quite as bad off as the Benoits because of the way the ultra-heavy-worlders' lungs worked, but it was of no consequence. They pulled well together and surged mightily, but against the Kreete it didn't make a shred of difference. They may as well have been trying to move a mountain. Without the brute strength of the Benoits who floundered in a thick fog of indecision and a dramatic drop in their coordination, it was over.

The Kreete held their ground for a while longer, until the men on the other side of the pit began to panic because of the rising level of pain from the rope. The Benoits could tolerate that still, their skin being so thick, but Fraidze, Bart, Ron, and Dex wanted nothing more than to get loose.

Finally, when the men were no longer pulling, the Kreete team went to work. They moved as one, from countless days of practice across the past seven cycles that they'd been training together. Taking a large new foothold, they heaved backward and saw the Benoits lean forward sharply. Those giants were still immensely strong, but now they were badly off balance.

Another large slide backwards gave the Kreete enough room and leverage that when they pulled that time, the contest was over.

Draake rolled forward onto his knees, shaking his head again and trying to clear the cobwebs. Ron saw Grayle rise, and fought through the burning sensation to pull again, but the Kreete were already on their feet and hauling fast.

Draake went into the pit first, and then the entire team was dragged in behind him in short order.

When they struck the stinking mud in the pit, the rope released them and the pain went with it, but that was only a small relief. They hadn't really noticed the smell outside the trench, as it thankfully lingered only within the lip, but now it seared their noses and eyes, making them retch with its foul odor.

The pit wasn't very deep, just barely over the fingertips of the Benoits, but the heavy viscosity of the mud prevented them from being able to gain any extra height to reach it. Draake tried to climb out immediately, using the rope, but the Kreete simply let it fall, leaving them all trapped in there until the recovery squad arrived.

Cache Kuar stood at her seat, vibrating with rage. She knew the signs of drug-induced lethargy, so she also knew the Kreete's little maneuver to that specific patch of ground had something to do with it, but since there was absolutely nothing she could do about it, she had to simply accept it.

"It looks like your suspicions were correct," Ishimar said softly, leaning over close with her eyes still watchful. She and Rosche then headed to the exit. "Good luck," she tossed back to Cache who hadn't moved yet. "And don't forget about...you know...what we discussed."

Cache forced a smile and replied; "I will not forget!" Then, when she was alone, she dismissed the couple from her mind completely and concentrated on the Games. "What will they do next?" was all she thought about.

It was nearly fifteen borts before they all stood on solid ground again, and another forty-five before they were showered off enough to keep from gagging. Even then they each had to visit the on-sight med station to rinse out their eyes and noses to stop the burning.

Ron very much wanted to call for an investigation into what the Kreete had done, but by the time they could have gone through the accepted protocols, the ground would have thawed and all evidence would have been gone.

They had to simply take their punishment and watch as the Kreete were announced as the winners.

The entire way back to the ship, they were given a wide amount of space, especially downwind, and they felt thoroughly discouraged when they reached it.

"How can we possibly beat those dragen, shadze-eating cowards?" Dex grumbled. "They'll rig every event to their advantage! We don't..."

"Stop your whining!" Draake ordered quickly. "We still received second place! We are still close to the top of the overall score. They can't get away with it every time! We must watch for our openings and take them when we can. As for myself, my favorite event is coming. I await the wrestling match. I want to get them in the ring, Benoi to Kreete!"

His ugly, misshapen eyes suddenly seemed to come alive with excitement, and Ron had to smile at the thought of a Kreete warrior against a Benoi. He couldn't wait to see it!

"Beyond that, we must simply hope for the best."

Draake then took his leave and went to shower again. The place reeked!

Far above them, the new commander of the _Confarii_...Goruthe Neen smiled a horrible Kreete smile and stood jubilantly in front of his huge seat. His plan had been a complete success. He'd shown the audience exactly who the dominant team was without equivocation...and tomorrow would be even better! He then strode away with the confident swagger of the rulers of all lessor beings.

Arsisi glowered as much as she could in the back nook of the space. She performed her duties flawlessly, but still ground her teeth when she was out of anyone's sight. Her whole life had revolved around serving her masters and striving for the perfection they did...but now she scoffed at it.

Her instruction had driven their honor code into her brain from the onset. "The powerful rule the weak" was something she understood. The most intelligent and advanced ruled the primitive; that she understood as well. Justice for their minions and fairness in competition were also terms she fully grasped. So now, at the tender age of twenty cycles, after interacting closely with them for barely one and a half cycles, she began to open her eyes to the true nature of the Lords.

She'd been on duty for the entire day and had watched with great interest while Goruthe oversaw the "preparation" of that final match, behind the giant curtains that blocked the spectators' view. She didn't understand exactly what they had injected into the ground, but when she witnessed the Outcasts all fall into that drunken-like stupor, her suspicions peaked. And when they were dragged into the pit, she was mortified. Above all that however, when Goruthe leaped to his feet in triumph and congratulations poured into his private com, she was sickened by their treachery.

How could her hero possibly win, or even stand a chance against their manipulation?

### Chapter Twenty-five

### Wrestling

Day 5:

At dawn of the fourth day, Ron made his way out of his quarters and into the ship's mess as usual. The stench of the mud was still clear in his nose and he wondered if he would be able to ignore it enough to eat.

He met the other humans staggering in one at a time, but Draake and his fellows were absent. Ron found that odd because he'd gotten the feeling that the Benoits needed very little sleep, but he brushed it aside for the moment. The men all compared the severity of sore muscles and speculated about the day's event while they ate the equivalent of ten 'normal' men's breakfasts.

(Heavy-worlders needed an extraordinary amount of calories to keep them going at peak performance.)

It was relaxing not to be around the intimidating Ultra-heavies for a while, so no one commented on it or complained about their absence, but when the Benoits didn't show halfway through breakfast, they got concerned. Those giants didn't ever miss a meal!

Ron led the men to Draake's room and they pounded on the metal surface for several borts before hearing movement inside, and when they did, it sounded like a drunken bull stumbling about.

When the door finally opened, Draake fell through it and rolled on the floor as if he was heavily intoxicated, or drugged. Ron immediately thought of the Kreete!

"Draake!" Ron shouted at the huge being struggling on the floor. "What is it? What's wrong with you?"

For an answer, Ron felt a heavy backhand that sent him flying into the sidewall.

He wasn't injured badly, but the rest of the men scurried back from their massive captain hurriedly.

"Geez, that guy's strong!" Ron said as he righted himself and headed back in. "Fraidze, Dex, and Bart...grab his hands and try to hold him down for a lita!"

"You're crazy, man," Dex replied, stepping further away. "I'm not going anywhere near that guy!"

"Get your ass over here and help us!" Ron ordered with real anger welling swiftly. "If we can't get him up and ready for today's event, we'll be disqualified! Then what'll we do? You want to be a slave for the rest of your life?"

Dex hesitated for just a few more moments before rushing in and lending his support. Two men on each wrist did pretty well. It was still a struggle, but at least he couldn't swing anymore.

"Draake!" Ron shouted again. "Draake! What's wrong?"

"I can't...I can't see!" he replied with slurred speech and clear panic in his voice. "I can't see, and the world is spinning in my mind...and my head feels like it'll explode!"

"What happened? You were fine before going to bed last night. What happened over night?"

Draake stopped his struggling for a while and focused all of his concentration on the question. It took several litas before he could reply, but his thoughts were much clearer.

"Nothing...I mean something obviously, but nothing that I know of. What about Brome and Al?"

"We don't know. They haven't come out yet. You were the first we tried to wake up."

"That's it!" he suddenly shouted. "We can't wake up! It's like we've been drugged in our sleep! Are my eyes open?"

"Yes...but they won't stay still. They're sliding around and around."

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Draake moaned in a great, bellowing roar. "May the Guardian flay their lowly hides!"

"What?" Bart asked. "Who? What happened?"

"The Kreete! Those spineless, gankle-whoring cowards! They did this!"

"Did what? When? How?" Ron asked; his own suspicions fully aroused now.

"It was the mud! That stinking, horrid stench was a cover! They must have added a little Benoi cocktail to that soupy sludge."

"What're you saying? What kind of cocktail?"

"When the Kreete attacked our world, we fought them back fiercely. Their 'honor code' prevented them from using their energy weapons because we had none, but they couldn't stand against us blade to blade, even in their exo-suits, so they resorted to chemical warfare! Their scientists developed a gas that clings to our visual cortex and disrupts the signals to our brains. The result is slightly different on each of us, but it typically causes extreme spatial disorientation and temporary blindness."

"Why didn't you notice it yesterday?"

"I don't know. They must have figured out a way to delay the effects."

"Is it permanent?" Fraidze asked in horror, seeing any chance of freedom rapidly slipping away.

"No. If we had enough time though, it would pass."

"How temporary do you think?"

"I don't know. Normally, it's at least an entire day...sometimes two...but I don't know how this type will work."

"Can you stand and walk?"

"Not well, I'm sure...but I'll try."

The four men steadied Draake and hauled him to his feet, but it was all they could do to keep him upright. He listed and swayed terribly.

Over to Brome's cabin they went and Draake entered, leaving the men outside.

"Stay here," he told them as he made his way inward, leaning on the wall heavily and feeling his way around.

The men watched through the dimly lit interior as Draake roused his fellow roughly, and he awoke swinging. Draake caught the blow in the midsection and fell back hard, causing even more of a ruckus than when he'd stumbled out of bed.

"Brome! It's me...Draake. We've been poisoned with zeigren gas!"

"I can't see!" Brome growled.

"Yes, I know. Neither can I...but we have to get ready or we'll forfeit today's challenge."

"Yes, Captain," Brome replied before falling out of his rack and crawling toward the door.

Draake found his way back out and Ron and Fraidze helped him to Al's room for a nearly exact repeat of the incident with Brome.

Bart and Dex tried to help Brome, but he still fell a few times before making it to the hatch and outside. The cool morning air helped a fraction with a sharp breeze blowing straight at them, so the three Benoits leaned against the hull of their ship and tried to stabilize their senses.

"How did they do it?" Al asked with obvious discomfort in his gravelly voice.

"I think it was in the pit," Draake told him. "That's why they went to such extremes to make sure they won. Their little plan of freezing the ground was too risky for such a petty win. If they'd been discovered, it would have marred the competition for a hundred cycles. But this way, they've taken us out of contention for an entire day's events. And I can just guess what event will be chosen today...the one we Ultras have the greatest advantage in...wrestling. The Kreete will be looking to make an example of us here...to restore their dignity. If the humans are left to compete alone, our team will certainly fall back heavily in the rankings. It's doubtful we can make up enough points to recover from a loss like that."

"Then we need to find a way to get through today's challenge," Ron announced with all the confidence of a king.

"Yes," Draake agreed immediately. "Itsu, take over as captain for today. Get us each to our event. As captain, you will be allowed to accompany any of your teammates. Al...Brome...we will simply have to find a way to get through it!"

"Yes, Captain!" they replied in unison.

"Good," Ron acknowledged.

He picked out the directory beacons the other teams were following, and then the four men took up positions on both sides of the Benoits and began walking. It was a new heading, which meant a totally new venue, and he desperately hoped it wasn't too far.

To everyone else, it appeared that they were merely conversing in a semi-huddle as they strolled along, but to the human men it was very different. Having the massive creatures' arms draped on them for support felt like they were each carrying another full grown man on their shoulders.

Ron got his wish when the hike turned out to be fairly short that morning, only about one and a half hoz, and again they were paraded before the mass of screaming fans already filling the stands. The contestants passed the seats and went to another outdoor holding area, but the way the Ultras were swaying and hunched over left a large number of onlookers pointing and whispering.

Cache had been lucky enough to purchase a private booth that day, (The original owners chose to part with it begrudgingly...and only when the price she offered eclipsed the amount they'd spent for the entire week) so she was able to relax more, knowing that interacting with her neighbors would not be a problem.

When she saw the way Draake and his fellows staggered however, she knew something was terribly amiss, and her inner turmoil began to grow all over again. Ron, at least appeared healthy and alert, so she was able to calm herself to a degree, but too, she knew what the day's upcoming events were, and they were far from benign, so even in the luxury suite, she felt far less than composed.

A few moments later, the judges called the captains forward. Ron joined the group for the selections, expecting to have a drawing like Draake had described, but as it turned out, the former system wasn't being used for that particular competition.

Larshe was patiently waiting for the group to assemble, and when he caught Ron in the throng, he gave a tiny nod, and a wisp of a wry smile leaked from the corner of his mouth. A few moments later he began.

"Today's event is Festdorine; Wrestling!" Larshe announced to the forty-two team leaders, his casual scan of the group ending with a stare at Ron.

Ron got the impression that the fellow was excited to see the Ultras in action, as was he.

"The objective is simple. You must force your adversary out of the ring using any means necessary. No weapons are allowed, but no strategy or maneuver is illegal either. However...this is not intended to be a death event, so killing your opponent will disqualify you from further competition.

"Now, we have input all contestants' names, weights, and density classes into our computer and have added to that all personal scores of the previous events. With that data, we have determined a ranking system that is as fair as we feel we could legitimately make it.

You will be paired with opponents of similar classes, so you will not all have to face the Lords...or the Ultra-heavies. You will be awarded points by how quickly you can dispatch your adversaries. If anyone wishes to move up a class they can double their points, but that is extremely risky and not advised.

"Keep your team members in their holding area until they are called. When they are, you have seven borts to report to the match. As with the team competition yesterday, the matches will be single elimination until the top twenty of the 'Niners' and the 'Tenners' are reached. At that stage it will be double...except for the title match. Each team is given the points their fighters accumulate to reach an overall champion team.

"Are there any questions?"

"Who will fight the Ultras?" Ron asked.

"There are only two teams who have the Ultra-heavy members, so those men from planets above a 10.4 class planet will have to face them. But the Benoits will be restrained by gravity weights to slow them down. Let me warn those men however. The weights merely dampen their speed...not their strength."

"Any others?"

No one said a word.

"Very well. Good luck to you all...and may the Guardian protect you."

As the captains strode away, Ron waited for the Kreete leader to leave before approaching Larshe.

"Moderator Larshe," he said. "Might I ask how the matches will work...in what order?"

Larshe considered the question a moment before deciding there was no breach of conduct.

"The more exciting matches will be held for later...if that is what you mean. We have forty-two teams with seven members each, and seven match circles. Most of the contestants are Niners, so they will begin the competition with the Tenners following.

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just that the Benoits are feeling a bit off today and I was hoping they had some time to recover."

"I was wondering why Draake hadn't showed...and why Grayle was in such a good mood! They should have a few billots, but I cannot delay the matches. I hope you understand."

"Yes, of course. Thank you."

Ron walked swiftly back to his team and let them in on the news.

"Good," Draake told them. "We need to drink as much water as possible, and work out. The gas will be purged from our system by the passing of fluids through our tissues.

"We should begin immediately."

"But we have to stay in the holding area until we're called," Ron reminded him.

"Yes. We will have to make do with what we have. You are the captain, so you need to get the porters to bring us water...by the barrel!"

Ron set out immediately and Draake scanned the sparse accouterments swiftly. His head spun out of control when he turned it too fast and he dropped to one knee.

"There are three benches," he said with some discomfort. "You men lie down on them."

The humans looked at him with skepticism but did as they were told.

"Al, take the nearest bench. Brome, you use this one. I'll take the other."

The three giants then dropped down on their backs and slid up under the benches. As soon as the men took their positions they began pressing them up and down like free weights.

One large man wasn't much of a challenge for a Benoi soldier, but after a while they were able to get quite a good sweat going...especially after they lifted their huge legs a few inches off the ground. That continued for the first half billot.

When Ron came back with the water, he brought with him some good news. There was a warm-up facility next to the holding pens, and any of the competitors were allowed to utilize it as long as no conflict arose.

"Get'em up quickly!" Ron told his men.

The four human teammates struggled their way over to the appropriate area with the Ultras staggering along, and then got each of the Benoits positioned on some machine. The place was like a huge gym, with treadmills, punching bags, rowing machines, and some devices that Ron couldn't guess at. They went first to the row of weight benches.

"Put all the weights on," Draake ordered.

Ron and Dex loaded him up while the others did likewise for Al and Brome. It was so many plates that the anchor bolt would barely attach. Ron had lifted some pretty hefty weight back on Rauld when he first got tested for strength, but his eyes rose when he looked at what the Benoits were attempting.

Draake felt for the bar...which was three inches in diameter...and lifted it over his chest.

"Good," he said. "This will do for a while. Make sure the attendants keep the water close by."

Then he began pumping the gargantuan weight up and down.

"You men go and rest," Ron told Dex, Fraidze, and Bart. "I'll make sure the Kreete leave them alone. Check back after your first matches."

A billot later, Ron was called, so he turned his duty over to Fraidze. The giants were still steadily pressing that massive weight up and down in fine rhythm. They were sweating profusely and had drunk over two gallons of water each.

Ron got paired against a fellow from Ishlant...a class 10.3 world. His name was announced as Odain. He was a few inches taller than Ron, with longer arms and a huge, barrel chest. He wore his dark brown hair closely cropped, and his eyes were a deep shade of green. Odain's muscles weren't defined on his body, but he looked as solid as a hickory tree. He was shirtless and wore tightly fitting trousers, no doubt to keep any looser garment from being used as a handhold.

Ron quickly kicked off his own shoes and shed his shirt as well...he too wanting no advantage given away. When he stepped onto the foot-thick fighting platform, he saw that it was made of wood...thousands of one-inch planks in fact, stacked on edge and bonded together. It provided excellent traction, and for heavy-worlders it was fairly giving against their iron-hard bones and skulls. It was formed into a circle forty feet across which was edged with a ring of blood red paint to give visual warning that the boundary was near.

The ringmaster then called the two contestants together and explained the rules.

"You fight until one of you touches the outside of the circle. At that point, the other is the winner. You may use any technique you wish other than killing your opponent. Death will constitute disqualification from the Games. To ensure that any coward might wish to simply step out of the ring without fighting, the result of losing...or in that case, forfeiting...is penalized by loss of points plus a powerful, and painful, jolt of electricity.

"Please step to the edge now and observe."

The two men did as bid, and when their foot touched the area outside the red line, a blast of energy forced them both to recoil like they'd been Tasered.

"That is set a one tenth power. During the match it will be set to 100 percent, so you have some idea what awaits the loser of the match.

"Any questions?"

They shook their heads negatively.

"Good. Step back."

When the official was clear of the platform, he called out; "Begin!"

Ron took up a stance of maximum mobility and started angling toward Odain. Time was running though and Odain didn't want to waste any of it. Ron could clearly see the contempt in his opponent's eyes when Odain looked at his smaller, slimmer physique.

(Apparently he didn't stop to consider why they were both in the same weight class)

They exchanged a few half-hearted blows, neither landing anything substantial, and drew steadily closer to one another...each looking for the opening he needed. Odain took a couple more shots before he was certain he could overpower this upstart challenger easily. He decided to end it quickly so he lunged forward, attempting to grapple with Ron. Ron just let him come.

When Odain dropped his head, opened his hands wide, and reached forward, Ron jumped and brought his knee up hard, catching the overconfident man under the chin solidly. Odain's head snapped sharply upward and stars filled his vision for half a lita...but that was more than enough.

Ron pounded the bigger man's midsection with a flurry of blows that took every ounce of air out of him and doubled him over. Odain dropped quickly to one knee, his body wracked by the beating, but tried to battle on. Ron gripped one flailing hand and snatched him off the floor and up onto his shoulder like he was a child. Odain was astounded by the ease of the move. His eyes opened as wide as they could possibly go as he gasped for air, but he was awarded no chance for that. Ron stepped swiftly to the edge of the ring and casually tossed him from the circle. He was strolling back to where he'd left his boots before Odain let out his first scream.

Cache leaped to her feet, screaming out Ron's name along with about two-hundred-thousand other fans of Itsu. He had accrued the largest fan-base of the Games by far, and his continuing exploits of physical prowess drew them to him in droves.

Cache was gambling again, and not shy about it anymore. She placed two million credits on him to win in under a bort, gaining her fifteen to one odds. Ron accomplished the task in fifty-seven litas...thirteen under her limit.

She was giddy at the prospects of so much wealth, even though she needed none of it and had no idea what she would even do with it. All she knew was that it was fun and exciting.

Dex had a little more trouble than that, but Fraidze and Bart breezed through the first round as well. All those bouts and practice sessions on Parkanick had sharpened their skills well.

When Ron returned to check on the Benoits, he found the giants still furiously working out. They'd moved on to the rowers by then, still too unbalanced to attempt the treadmills, and their gigantic muscles stood out on prominent display. At that moment Ron felt immensely fortunate that he would never have to meet them in competition.

"How's it coming, Draake?"

"It's going as quickly as it can, little man."

"Can you see anything yet?"

"No, not really. Everything's just a big blur."

"Can any of you stand at all...on your own, I mean?"

"Yes," replied Al and Brome, "But only with great concentration," Brome added. "And moving is a whole other matter. Agility is out of the question. We'll be lucky to stay in the ring on our own, much less against an opponent." Draake stayed silent. He just kept rowing.

Ron watched the brooding giant for a few borts, and mentally pictured the power he would generate with real oars and the speed of the imaginary row boat he was in. He guessed that it probably would be possible to water-ski behind it. He then decided to let the Benoits alone, and turned to leave.

"Grayle has been coming by often to check on us," Draake said in as low a voice as he could. "I know because I heard the attendants keep offering him their assistance."

"Well that pretty much settles it. They know exactly what is going on. You can bet they're getting regular updates about the competition from someone too."

"No kidding?" Draake replied dryly, with his usual sarcastic tone.

Ron left them then. There was nothing he could do anyway, and it was time for him to fight again.

He faced a grizzly soul at that bout in the form of an Ousterion named Gernt...a fellow as round as a human could be and still be able to walk. He reminded Ron very much of the Sumo wrestlers on Earth, and Ron guessed Gernt had to be three times his own weight.

Ron stood opposite the massive fellow, listening to the announcer go over the rules again, and wondering whether or not if he hit the man with all he had, would the blow even register through his bulk.

"Begin!"

At that instant, the Ousterion merely dropped to his knees. He had almost no mobility anyway, and so he clearly put the pressure on his opponent to initiate an attack or allow the time to run, which cost points. Ron could tell the man was strong, his planet being a 10.2 world, and since he'd already won, it showed he wasn't without skill, so Ron did something no one would possibly anticipate. He crouched down and charged!

Ron had ten peors to build momentum, so when he reached Gernt, he was sprinting. The colossal fellow smiled slyly. Apparently that was exactly what he'd hoped for. Ron lowered his shoulder like a fullback readying to hit the line on a goal-line stance, but when Gernt braced himself to absorb the impact, Ron dove right over him instead.

The Ousterion fell forward just a fraction, his left hand searching the wooden surface of the decking for support and his eyes shooting upward to track Ron's move, but in an instant his search was over. Ron had leaped over his head by barely an inch, but had caught the man's enormous neck in his interlocked heels as he sailed by. His inertia would not have been enough to topple the Ousterion in a straight on collision, but it was clearly substantial enough to yank the man to his back by using his chin as leverage.

It was a bit of a risky move on Ron's part for two reasons. First, a normal man's neck...even a heavy-worlder's...would have snapped under such tremendous stress, and that would have been disastrous to them both...more so to Gernt, of course. However, Ron had gauged the fellow's size as being stout enough to prevent that, and so he'd taken the risk. Second; Gernt was crouched barely two peors from the boundary line, so if Ron had missed for any reason, he'd have flown right out of the ring without any help from his adversary whatsoever.

As it was though, Ron's daring maneuver hauled Gernt's figure backward with plenty of momentum to have him simply roll out of the ring when Ron released him in a beautiful tumble.

Ron popped to his feet and walked away without so much as a glance back.

The stands erupted once more in uncontrolled bedlam, and the contestants in three of the other matches going on at that time stopped to gaze at them all from pure astonishment before returning to their own fights. Cache was trembling once again at the rush of the match, and so proud of Ron that she could hardly contain herself. That round had taken him fewer than five litas.

It was less than a billot later that the announcer called for Al Pope to present himself, and Ron went with him as a guide. The big man still couldn't see more than ghostly figures, but he walked along well enough with Ron at his elbow.

Al entered the ring slowly, listening for everything he couldn't see. They were in the ring of the center platform...one that could be controlled remotely. He immediately felt the pull of the gravity suit he was ordered to wear and tried to adjust to it. The extra weight would hinder him a good bit, but he knew he could manage it.

His long billots of exercise had drained some of his nearly endless strength, but at least he didn't feel the nausea he'd woken up with. Unfortunately, the platform still swayed in his mind, albeit at a fairly slow speed.

They went through the same instructions Ron had, and then the judge cleared the ring.

"Begin!"

Al's opponent, Uriaus, was closer to human than a Benoi. He was from the class 10.5 world, Messimus, and he was huge. Standing eye to eye with Al, he looked like what most people would guess Goliath had. He was stern and wary, with a jaw as square...and nearly as big...as a file cabinet. His shoulders were bulging and wide, and his body was a mass of rippling muscle. (He had actually thrown the hammer a few peors farther than Draake had, but his aim was terribly off and the penalty had hurt him badly.)

Uriaus circled Al cautiously and saw that the Benoi was unable to track him visually. A good fighter can spot a weakness quickly. When he was rounding Al, and the giant was turning too slowly, Uriaus attacked with a leaping kick to his head.

Al went down hard, but rolled to his feet quickly. What would have dropped most men stone cold, he brushed off as a lucky shot...an annoyance. Al kept his hands on the wooden surface to stabilize his swimming mind, and Uriaus saw that as a sign he was stunned. The man flew in at Al with another kicking maneuver, but the Benoi had seen many battles. He knew his own stance and knew how he would attack a similarly positioned foe, so he guessed the same from Uriaus and threw his massive forearms up to shield himself.

The blow was immensely powerful, and carried both contestants into a tumble with the collision, but when they came to a stop, Uriaus's expression was one of terror, not triumph. He found out instantly why you never allow an Ultra to get their hands on you!

Al had a firm grip on the man's right leg, and even though Uriaus kicked and punched frantically, the ultra-heavy bulk of the Benoi absorbed the punishment easily. Al scrambled to his feet and used his opponent like the hammer throw, only with a single spin of his enormous figure.

Uriaus sailed from the platform in a blink, and the crowd's cheers drowned out his screams of agony.

"Al!" Ron called, grinning like a kid at the easy strength of his teammate. "This way, Al."

The Benoi steadied himself as well as he could manage and shuffled over in Ron's direction. Then they both ambled away to the holding area.

Brome passed them both, but he was alone. His senses were mostly back on line, and he walked with pleasure toward his victim...that is...his opponent. His match lasted less than half a bort! There truly was no fair way to fight an Ultra hand to hand...unless you too were one.

Another two rounds went by before the final event came to be. It was the only match comparable to either contestant, and so it was the only one either had to endure, but it was between two titans!

When Draake was finally called, Ron went with him. He was no better off than Al had been, but his adversary was a totally different breed than Uriaus had faced. A Kreete warrior named Silas Erlsis...a Reaper class soldier of the Triad's most elite attack platoons, the World Enders...stepped into the ring opposite Draake Tarbold.

The crowds looking on grew completely silent.

Ron fleetingly wondered why the Kreete's entire team wasn't comprised of Reapers...their ultimate warriors. But then something occurred to him; what could they possibly gain by showing superiority over lessor beings? Therefore, why would someone of their elite rank ever think they would need to risk their lives to do so? That was for those underlings still trying to prove themselves.

Ron then surmised that Silas was either incredibly vain, or very new to the title.

After the instructions were given, the two giants faced each other and Silas began the typical braggart pitch that nearly all Kreete loved to use as intimidation.

"I am Silas Erlsis, of the Kreete Empire. I have crushed worlds beneath my boots. I am a Reaper...a dealer of death to lesser beings! Your pathetic world fell to the might of the Empire, fool. What makes you think you can stand against one of our most elite?"

Draake didn't like to talk in the first place, so it was no surprise that he was tight-lipped now. He merely stared back blankly as his enormous chest heaved in and out.

"You look tired, Tarbold!" Silas announced, seeing a droop in his massive shoulders, bespeaking the long day of exercise he'd suffered through.

Silas then did as Uriaus had done with Al. He circled and watched the reaction of the great Benoi fighter. He was not an impatient hunter, and took in every scar on the giant's body...proof of his experience in battle. This was no farmer sent to defend his world by orders...this creature had seen real war. Still, as Draake's eyes fell behind the Reaper's advances badly, Silas smiled a gruesome Kreete grin that displayed all four of his tusks.

"Step out of the ring now, and save yourself the punishment you are about to receive!"

Draake merely turned to keep the sound of Silas's voice in front of him.

Silas sped up his approach and outpaced Draake's tracking, starting off with a few powerful punches. The blows sounded like a sledgehammer striking a tree, and the reverberations made the closest fans flinch hard. Draake kept his arms and fists up to protect his face and head, but the huge knuckles of the Reaper went to work on every other surface.

Draake tried to counter Silas's rain of punches, but he was always just a little off target, and only landed glancing shots to the Kreete.

The gigantic warrior who represented the Lords however, did not miss. He used Draake as a monstrous punching bag for a good five borts. Apparently he didn't worry about the clock ticking away. After all, when he won, he would be the overall champion, so it really didn't matter.

After a particularly well landed blow, Silas lunged in with a forearm to Draake's head that pounded him to the wooden deck. He followed that with a knee to the Benoi's back that crushed him further to the platform before Draake could roll out far enough to get to his feet again.

Ron cringed at the sight. He knew all too well the incredible strength those blows held, and he wondered how much Draake could stand before he fell for good. After all, he was unable to retaliate or retreat. He just had to withstand, and hope to get lucky.

Silas stayed on Draake like a demon, kicking and punching the giant as he struggled to get clear of the avalanche of blows falling upon him. At last, when it appeared Draake was trying to get to the edge to end the brutal attack, Silas leaped in the way and blocked his escape, dishing out even more heinous abuse.

Finally, Draake staggered to his feet again and for a moment looked like he was readying a defense, so Silas repeated his first attack. He lunged in hard, with his full body weight behind his forearm that would break a human in half, so powerful was that gigantic creature.

There was a loud "snap" when the blow landed, and a third of those watching put their hand to their mouths out of nausea, fear, empathy, or prayer. Such one-sided battles were difficult to watch for the typical audience.

Ron wasn't the typical audience though. He didn't flinch or shy away from the scene. In fact, he finally had a reason to smile. The sharp snapping sound hadn't come from the faltering Benoi, but rather from the Kreete! That devastating forearm blow had never landed, caught firmly in the left hand of the Ultra. Instead, the gut-wrenching sound everyone had just shuddered away from was actually Draake's right fist...the size of a 16 pound bowling ball... slamming into Silas's ribs. He had shattered at least four of them.

Silas's knees shook, and his silver eyes squeezed shut for a lita as the pain stunned him. When they opened again, they spread wider than seemed possible. "OH NO!" he whispered.

Draake didn't waste a moment, head butting the Reaper hard. "Oh yes!" he growled. Silas's face was flooded with his own blood instantly, his nose destroyed and his eyebrow split with a four-inch gash. (A Benoi's skull was so dense, it may as well have been solid concrete.)

"For my homeworld!"

Draake still held Silas's forearm which he twisted suddenly, causing the Kreete to dip his shoulder forward. Another heavy fist tore that joint loose in one blow and put the Reaper to his knees.

A sharp whimper escaped the Kreete, but he had seen literally thousands of battles and immediately retaliated by rolling forward quickly and whipping around with his feet in a remarkable attack move. His size-26 boots struck out savagely, well aimed for Draake's chin, but they never landed. It was a brilliant move and should have worked well to separate him from his adversary and give him some space to recover...but it didn't. Draake was ready for it.

"For my family!"

Ron suddenly realized that Draake's vision and balance were not as compromised as he'd led on. Draake clearly saw Silas's maneuver coming and used his superior quickness to twist clear of it. Then he grabbed Silas by the left ankle and wrenched that leg around the opposite way much faster than Silas's knee could take.

The sound of an eight-and-a-half-foot-tall Kreete warrior screaming in agony would have sickened most any person...at least any person who didn't live under their rule. As it was though, no one in the stands above the Lord's row cringed, or prayed, or showed any sign of empathy. This was the long-awaited payback for all those straining, gleaming eyes.

Silas's writhing figure rolled over with the force of that attack, leaving him exposed again, and Draake Tarbold was like a cloak he couldn't shed.

"For justice!" he hissed as his mighty fist slammed into Silas's good arm, snapping it cleanly just above the elbow.

Silas grunted again, his mind overwhelmed from the torturous beating he was receiving. He was desperately trying to find the edge of the platform by then, but this time it was not to stay his opponent's retreat. His silver, dead eyes were suddenly alive with panic. This time it was he who sought escape.

Draake stood over him with contempt written all across his wide, disfigured face. He then looked up at the crowd of Kreete only fifty peors away.

"The superior race!" he roared. Then he picked Silas's broken form up to the height of his reach and threw him off the platform, to another round of pain to culminate his humiliating defeat.

As their champion's limp form flew through the air, Draake Tarbold spread his overly long arms out like an eagle and cut loose a howl that would have rivaled a Kodiak bear's...a clear challenge to the watching Triad members.

The audience was deathly quiet, instantly terrified of that monstrous being. Even in the Kreete section, those in attendance instinctively leaned back, away from that frightening display.

Draake then stepped off the wooden decking right amid Silas's six teammates who were all rushing to his side. He felt the release of the gravity field immediately and briefly wondered if...no 'wished'...that they would attack him. He was still in the mood for battle.

They gave him a wide berth though, and two squads of armored soldiers moved in to make sure there was no incident.

"Draake!" Ron shouted for the third time, standing right next to the giant.

The massive Benoi turned slowly and gazed at him.

"We should leave! NOW!" Ron told him sternly.

Draake hesitated, and then nodded.

"Yes. You are right," was all he said.

Cache Kuar smiled contentedly when the match finally ended. She'd feared some kind of subversive tactic on the Kreete's part, but all had turned out well. She'd bet heavily on Ron all day again...even when his final match was with one of the Destroyers; Borsh Cildek, a Kreete Master Killer who stood a foot taller and thirty percent heavier...but he had not let her down. Ron hadn't actually gotten the fellow out of the ring, but in a daring move, he tripped Borsh up enough so that when he fell, his left hand had touched the outer red marker, ending the bout.

She retired with a light heart and didn't even contemplate the next day's challenge. Ron was safe and sound for another night, and that was all that concerned her.

Aboard the _Confarii_ , Goruthe shuddered inside, yet retained his outward composure. It was true that the Benoits had proven more worthy adversaries than he'd expected, but too, all understood across the Empire that beings like them were not "superior" to the advanced Kreete, but they were obviously "physically formidable".

Once again, the final bout for champion had been lost, but the overall day had been won, thankfully, and the next event was all but assured. He collected his thoughts about what he'd tell the governing board and walked off with a stern expression. Tomorrow was taken care of. Everything would be fine.

Arsisi had watched the Outcasts take a thorough pounding, even Itsu, but she'd weathered it all without too much anxiety because they'd managed to remain very close in points to the Kreete team. What did concern her however, was going on at the four stations over to the right...where the majority of the gambling was being carefully scrutinized. There was a certain patron in the crowd who kept winning against incredible odds...and that could not be tolerated. They performed a reverse trace on the monitor being used and took a long look at exactly who was so incredibly lucky as to be able to beat their odds-makers so often, and so soundly.

Arsisi then watched as two agents were dispatched to investigate that abnormality.

### Chapter Twenty-six

### The Sled

Day 6:

The morning following the wrestling matches, everyone who'd participated was feeling the results. Even with the med-stations working on each of them, the humans were hardly moving. Dex, Bart, and Fraidze had all felt the ravages of the Games' punitive measures against those who'd left the ring unexpectedly, and so they remained very still.

They were sitting around the breakfast table grumbling and complaining of the numerous bruises, sore muscles, and strains they'd sustained when Ron strolled in as if it were just a lazy Sunday morning. He showed not a hint of discomfort as he fairly glided across the floor to slide into a seat beside them.

"What's up?" he asked when he caught the disgruntled glare of his teammates. He was slightly distracted as he eyed the hoverbot that was coming to take his order, and so hadn't heard their discussion.

Dex and Bart merely shook their heads, but Fraidze couldn't resist a comment.

"Man, doesn't anything affect you?"

Ron smiled with a curious expression, but spoke to the bot.

"Same as yesterday," he told it in a pleasant voice. After all, he was in a very good mood this morning. Watching Draake destroy the Kreete Reaper had raised his spirits tremendously. He then turned to the men.

"What do you mean?"

"I know you won all your matches yesterday," Fraidze continued, "but I saw a couple of them and you really took a beating! In fact, that's a pretty nice shiner. How can you act like nothing even happened? Don't you feel pain?"

Ron smiled again and shrugged his shoulders. This time though, it was a calm, almost dismissive smile.

"I've been through worse."

Fraidze then caught a quick flash of sternness that urged him to change the subject.

"Well, I hope today is something a little less painful!"

"It will be!" announced Draake as he strolled into the dining facility. He too walked easily and calmly, even though he wore clear indications of the preceding day's events. "Wrestling is the only contact sport in the Feats of Strength section of the games. Usually it is the final competition of the week...so that everyone might heal up during the travel period to the next world. I can only speculate about why they changed it this time," he added with a sinister smile. He was very happy with himself.

"Any guess about what we might be facing today?" Dex inquired while trying to stretch out his sore shoulder.

"No, but whatever they have planned, it is north of here about five hoz, so we should get going as soon as we can."

The rest of the team emerged shortly afterward and they all hurried through breakfast. Half a billot later, the Outcasts struck out heading north through a dense forest to a new battleground. The air was cooler that morning than the previous few, which allowed the dew point to be reached, leaving the woods heavy with moisture in the form of a thick fog.

The team members were quiet as usual, their footfalls sounding uncommonly loud in the washed out, misty dawn, and they felt anxious, each wondering what lay in store for them. That is, all except for Ron of course.

The path was wide and well-made...impossible to miss...so Ron just strolled along and enjoyed the trek by sampling the air and sounds of the woods. It felt immensely relaxing to him to catalog the dozens of birds' calls and abundance of earth-bound animals chattering and barking to one another as the various groups of alien beings passed through their domain.

Bart caught the wide grin on Ron's face a few times and just shook his head in disbelief. The butterflies in his own stomach felt larger than the birds above, and he simply couldn't understand how anyone could even appear to be having a good time.

They broke out of the forest at the edge of a wide, open field which was closely mown. Off to the left were a new set of stands filled with the usual crowd, and when those beckoning fans caught a glimpse of the three Ultras, the place fairly exploded with cheers and whistles once more...except for the lower levels filled with Kreete patrons, of course. As before, they remained dead silent.

Draake marched his team past the crowd and followed the other competitors who were headed down a long, gentle slope to a gathering point nearly half-a-hoz away.

"Great!" Dex grumbled. "Sled pull."

"Sled pull?" Fraidze asked, scouring the scene for more information. Ron too had no clue about the reference, and joined him in the visual search.

"Yeah...I can tell by the way the ground is laid out next to the grandstands. Each team has to haul a weighted sled to the top of the hill, but the difficulty increases as you near the finish! It's dragen brutal, man!"

"And if you cannot complete the task, you are punished...like the wrestling match," Brome added over his shoulder.

The men all cringed except for Ron. He hadn't felt the painful charge, but he suspected it would be very unpleasant.

Once again the teams filed past the field where the event would take place without being allowed to actually see the task, and were herded into separate pens. Draake went out a short time later to witness the lottery drawing and returned with their position.

"Dex was correct in his assessment of the event," he announced. "It is the sled-pull. The order we compete in is different this time too. There will be seven teams spread out across the field in separate lanes. Each race will pit the six closest teams to your overall score against you. It takes approximately one billot to reset the field between runs, and since we are in second place, we are in the final match."

Once more they were forced to wait, but those on Draake's team were not in any hurry...still wanting time to heal...so they just lounged about, stretching, napping, and listening to the sounds of the competition. There was much screaming and cheering for the participants...and occasionally "from" the participants. Apparently not every team was able to cross the distance.

At last Draake was summoned and the rest of the team filed out in his wake. They were behind another team...one from Prevailia (a class 10.4 planet in the Roichster Sector)...and their members all gawked at the giant Benoits up close.

The alien landscape was open and inviting to the men, but everyone there was so keyed up as not to notice the fine day...that is, all but Ron. He remained lighthearted as he scanned the pale yellow sky and the faraway forest-line, taking in the beauty of the afternoon.

"This would be a great place for a game of sand-lot football!" he told Fraidze as he reminisced about his younger life.

Fraidze managed not to punch him in the mouth...barely...but returned a glare that urged Ron back to the seriousness of the situation. His own body was quivering with anxious anticipation of the upcoming contest. Ron just shrugged off his irritation and kept up his inspection.

There were real mountains off to the southwest, having a line of snow-capped peaks extending as far as the horizon, and their foothills rolled and flowed across the western view like the Great Smoke Mountains of Tennessee. It was almost nostalgic to him.

The differing groups eventually met for instructions out on the field where Larshe was calmly awaiting them.

"Let me welcome you all to this sixth day of competition," he began. "Your teams have each demonstrated remarkable abilities leading up to today's event, so congratulations!"

"Today we have a new trial. This is the 'Harmenian Vedush'...the Sled-Pull. Each team will be required to haul a sled one thousand peors up the incline to the finish point at the far end of the stands. The sled has been weighted to be equal to ten times your combined body mass...twelve for the team with the ultras...and is designed specifically for these games to have a rather challenging tendency. You see, the majority of its weight sits toward the rear of it at the beginning, in order to get it moving as easily as possible. However, the further it is pulled, the more of its mass moves to the front and thereby increases its resistance.

"Now, even though it appears to be a heat race against the teams beside you, it is not. It was found to be so exhausting that any subsequent races would certainly be too taxing for further competition. Instead, the event is timed so that your scores can be assessed next to all those who came before you.

"Now for the rules; First...you must stay in the lane you are assigned. No interference with another team is permitted. Second: You may not touch the sled even by accident, or face disqualification. Third: There is no resting permitted. Once the sled is set in motion, it is not allowed to stop. That order is enforced in a unique way. The rope used to haul it will be lashed to the hands of the team members, and will transmit a painful charge if the sled halts even briefly. Some species actually have been killed by it, although that is fairly rare."

Several teams' captains' eyes widened at that announcement.

"The bindings will automatically release when the sled crosses the finish.

"Any questions?"

"Are there any rules about how we disperse our team?" Draake asked, causing Ron's curiosity to rise...as well as catching Grayle's attention. He was always on the alert for any changes in the way the events were played.

"No," Larshe replied. "You may place them anywhere they can fit, as long as no part of them touches the sled."

"I notice that the Kreete team has a new member," Ron pointed out casually. "Is that legal?"

Everyone then turned to regard the Lords' squad. To most humans, they all looked so much alike that no one would have noticed, but Ron easily spotted that the Reaper who'd faced Draake was no longer part of the team.

"Ah, yes, Itsu," Larshe admitted, "you are quite correct. One of the members of the Lords' team has taken ill I'm afraid, so they invoked the option of replacing him...which is allowed only once during competition, and only during the first stage...the Feats of Strength."

Several low murmurs and whispers shot through the large group quickly, but that was as far as any further discussion went.

There were no more questions, so the teams each followed an assigned attendant. Draake's group was directed to the second position from the one closest to the crowd. Once there they began examining the sled. It was easily four peors wide, ten long, and two thick. It had large "wagon" wheels in the aft section and snow-ski type runners up front. The runners were six inches wide and an inch thick, and resembled the heavy skids Ron had seen on airplanes rigged up for snow landings.

Ron took note that the Kreete team was assigned the first position...barely ten peors to their right...undoubtedly because they were the current points leaders.

Grayle's teammates each went to a specific spot on their rope, measuring it out carefully. They were obviously well trained for this event too, Ron concluded. Once set, they nodded to the attendants and their bindings were then lashed in place.

"So what's the strategy, Draake?" Dex asked, pulling his eyes away from their hated enemy and primary adversary.

Draake had considered that question for the past several borts so he didn't hesitate to lay out what was to come.

"This will be extremely difficult," he told them bluntly. "By the halfway point, you will be wishing you could quit. Your lungs will be burning and your hands will be cramping...and you will barely be able to see the far distant relief of the finish line. By three quarters, your legs will be knotting up, your lungs will be searing agony, and your back will scream in a constant wail of blinding, horrible pain."

The men all stared at their massive leader as if he were completely insane.

"And the strategy?" Dex finally choked out.

"Find a way to endure it," was all he replied.

Draake then spaced his men out in a specific order...by height. Ron was the shortest so he was in the lead, then Dex, then Fraidze, and then Bart. Behind Bart, Brome was several paces back, followed by Al who was even further back. Draake placed himself as far aft as he possibly could without touching the sled's forward-most runner.

The rope was secured to the sled at about waist high on Draake, which would have been nearly chest high on the humans, yet the giant grabbed hold of it in a peculiar manner. Ron was watching closely...as was Grayle...but neither could understand what he was up to, or why he'd spaced his fellows the way he had.

Ron was forced to turn his attention forward then because the attendant was there to secure him. He stared at the route ahead and channeled his thoughts like Draake had said. This was going to be very arduous. He barely noticed when the wet mesh of pliable rope material engulfed his large hands.

"Is there anything else I can do for you?" the attendant asked.

Ron was startled by the words, so focused was his mind. He looked around first, and then his eyes dropped to the small figure of a woman standing next to him.

"I'm sorry," he said in the deep, gentle voice that Josylinia Gitove (his love on Caron) so adored. "What did you ask?"

"Is there anything else I can do?"

Ron looked into her eyes for a long moment. Then his own gaze flickered to the track and back. "Pray."

Her eyes lit up with joy, and a grin instantly stretched across her lovely young face.

"Oh believe me, Master Itsu. I am...that is...we all are!"

She then turned her attention to the stands that looked so far away and waved her hand. Ron could barely make out the tiny figures of people at that distance, but someone there must have been watching with binoculars because in a blink, the entire audience jumped to their feet and let out a cheer that blasted down the hill as clearly as a thunderclap.

"Good luck to you..." she said happily, then glanced quickly over her shoulder at the Kreete and back to Ron, "Shartae!" she added in a whisper.

Ron was visibly shocked. "But...how...?"

She winked quickly at him and bowed ever so slightly...showing her reverence of him...and then she hurried away.

Ron couldn't help but follow her with his stare, but an adjusting tug on the rope gathered his attention once again. He would have to think about this new matter some other time.

A quick thought suddenly leaped into his mind. He hurriedly curled the rope back around so he could converse quietly with the other humans. He laid out a fast, simple, strategic plan which they all immediately agreed to, and then returned to his position.

"READY!" cried Larshe Mimkin, standing in the center of the lanes, approximately thirty peors out front.

All the ropes instantly drew taught as the seven members of each team leaned their bodies into the slope. Another moment's hesitation was immediately followed by a loud explosion sounding behind them. Ron easily recognized the Kreete plasma grenade's distinguishing resonance...and they were off.

Ron powered forward with all the strength he could manage, and when the combination of their diverse, even odd-looking teammates' mass momentum struck firmly on the heavy cord they gripped, the sled leaped into motion.

His powerful legs pumped up and down like he was back in college and hitting a blocking sled in football practice with his coach screaming in his ear.

Once the sled was moving, the resistance planed off to what felt like pulling a full-sized car...but then they started up the hill!

After a hundred peors, Ron felt his legs beginning to heat up and fought hard to control his breathing to a steady rate. He could already hear Dex behind him huffing deeply, and Bart was even louder. This event was going to hurt!

Ron shot a quick glance to his left and saw every other team was keeping pace pretty well so far, but then he looked right.

"Son of a bitch!" he cursed at them silently.

The Kreete team was almost running! He watched them with a sinking, disheartened feeling as they pulled forward with amazing speed, and wondered how they could possibly keep up such a pace.

He immediately felt like he was letting all his team's supporters down...but that really didn't matter at the moment because the Outcasts had to finish the race on their own, and the finish-line felt like it was getting farther, not closer.

He put his head down then and restored his focus to his task, and churned his knees. He also kept a keen watch on the ground for any loose patches or impediments to avoid.

They crossed the two hundred peors line a short time later and immediately began the strategy he'd come up with just before the race.

"Dex!" Ron huffed quickly, and then felt a little more weight on his load. Dex was taking a break. He released about half his pull so he could recover at least a little.

Ron glanced left again and saw the field had fallen back half a rope-length. The mighty Benoits were once again proving why mere men could not compete with Ultras. Then he stole a look to the right...and his eyes lit up. He'd expected the Kreete team to be two or three lengths ahead, but they were barely one!

"What happened?" his mind queried, but then it occurred to him what they were doing. Just like in team sports of all types, a prevalent strategy is to pace the field for a while, then surge to see who is strong enough to follow, and then return to the pace. If a group is conditioned enough, that works very well. Anyone who tries to keep up, but is not in good enough shape, drops off dramatically and often falls apart completely due to exhaustion. The others simply resign to the loss and concede the position without further threats.

Ron knew that Draake had a plan too. He didn't know what it was, but felt that was because the giant didn't know what he could expect from his human teammates. However, he knew something substantial was going to happen before this agonizing trial was over.

Four hundred peors passed.

"Bart!" Ron barked loudly, sending Dex back into the game.

Ron concentrated on his own work then as well, but he couldn't resist a look now and again so his head kept popping up every few borts to check on the Kreete. Fraidze rested next, and then he called back to Dex, forgoing any relief for himself.

At six hundred peors...only four hundred to go...the Lords' team was still fairly close. Although the lead man on their squad was a good thirty peors ahead of him, Ron's feet were only about three peors behind their sled.

The ground had turned steeper for the final climb to the finish, and Ron felt like his entire body was on fire...blazing from within. His throat was raw and his lungs seemed as dry as a desert. His hands were completely numb and his arms felt like the joints were all slowly tearing free...and his legs screamed in scalding agony with every step.

Two things kept him going. First was his iron will to never give up. Second was his desire to somehow beat those hideous, odious, despicable creatures to his right! But they showed no sign of slowing and he guessed that they would have a strong kick at the end.

Ron could hear his fellow humans huffing loudly behind him and knew they would give it their absolute all, but he wondered as the ground pitched upward even more, if they could hold on.

And then something changed!

The Kreete team was already fully on the final leg of the race, as their sled had just turned upward for the last time when...out of nowhere...Ron felt his burden lighten by a good twenty percent.

They were just getting to the stands area at that time, and an eruption of noise suddenly exploded from the onlookers with such zeal that Ron nearly recoiled from it.

"PUUUUUUUULLLLLLLL!" roared an order from behind him, from a source they all knew extremely well.

Draake was making a surge! And by the feel of it, the two other Benoits were determined to go with him. Could it be true? Did they really still have a chance?

In an instant Ron was flat out once again. In barely a dozen steps he'd caught up with the Kreete sled. That small bit of hope was exactly what he needed too, because suddenly he was revitalized...they all were. With the renewed influx of an extra flood of adrenalin, the pain and torment of the ordeal they'd been through was dulled...in some areas even quelled altogether.

With three hundred peors to go Ron was even with the forward end of the Kreete's sled...and they were overtaking them fast!

Grayle and his men were keeping to their plan, and since they were so far ahead at the final stage of the race, he didn't give much thought to Draake's squad. In fact, he actually thought the tremendous roar from the crowd was for him and his team for the impressive display they were making...until he looked left. Ron had pulled up even with him and was smiling...even under such phenomenal stress and weariness. Instantly, he too was revitalized with a rush of adrenaline, and so he jumped to life.

"MOOOOOOOVE!" he bellowed at his men.

They were taken off guard with that order, it coming almost a full hundred peors early, but Ron saw the cadence of their footfalls quicken in a seamless, coordinated acceleration nonetheless.

At that point the real race began. Ron and all those behind him felt the call of victory whispering in the light breeze as they continued to make inroads to the Kreete lead, even though it was slower now, and so they pulled all the harder.

The Kreete troops were at the other end of the spectrum however. Their inspiration was out of fear...fear that they would once more face the insult of a loss! And as everyone in the sporting business knows, fear is not an effective motivation. It will always shatter the spirit of the competitor, no matter the species.

After another hundred peors, their once fluid rhythm began to falter, and Grayle's near frantic orders to speed up did not help.

Off to the left, Ron heard screaming, so he took a quick glance and saw the Prevailians being dragged backward down the long hill at an ever increasing pace. Besides the painful jolting current of the rope, they were tumbling and bouncing very roughly on the firm ground, and Ron guessed they'd be lucky if no one snapped his neck or was seriously injured.

Back to his own ordeal went his mind, and his body delved deeper into its vast reservoir of strength. His lungs were expanding so hard to feed his need for oxygen that he feared his diaphragm might explode, but on he went.

With two hundred peors to go, Ron was even with their fourth man. He was already exhausted to a point he hadn't felt in over a cycle, yet he relentlessly pumped his massive legs. There were no more thoughts of rest periods for his men either, but they didn't seem to need them anymore. The thrill of the chase was fueling them now, and even the blazing anguish in their tortured lungs, arms, and legs would not stop them.

At one hundred peors, Ron stared straight into the eyes of the lead Kreete. He was a massive individual, as they all were, but as he gazed back at the man a third less his size, Ron saw the panic that was welling in his soul. At that moment, Ron knew they were spent. They'd used up whatever reserve they'd hung onto to try to stop the pass...but it hadn't been enough.

With ten peors to go, it was Ron who was nearly running, and he flew past the Kreete team with a three step lead. When the sled behind Draake finally crossed the line, the entire stadium was in sheer pandemonium. Above the Kreete's rows, the jubilation was chaotic and deafening...but within it the scene was one of hysterical admonition.

The energy pulsing in the stadium was so powerful that Draake and his team carried on a full twenty peors past the finish line, and would have gone even farther if the rope lashings hadn't automatically fallen aside and released them.

Once freed from the bindings that joined him to the rope, Ron's numb hands couldn't hold on anymore and slipped away in a blink. He bolted forward several more steps before his brain registered the reason his load was suddenly gone and told him to stop. At that point he staggered and swayed away from his lead position before eventually making it around to see his team members. Dex's legs shook so hard that he fell to the grass and lay on his back, his chest heaving up and down desperately. Bart was a bit more stable, but decided Dex had the right idea and so quickly followed suit. Fraidze held onto his momentum long enough to reach Ron and give him a mighty bear hug before wilting as well to lie in the warm grass.

Ron almost went down with him, but he spotted the Benoits trundling back to Draake and headed over as fast as he could. That's when he saw the blood.

As he rounded the hulking mass of Al, Ron saw their captain on his knees, barely able to stay upright at all...and a foot-long gouge was cut into his right shoulder almost half an inch deep, even through his super-tough hide. Ron stared sharply at the rope and saw it drenched in the giant's life fluid, and a trail of it was spread clearly in his wake.

Suddenly Ron knew what had actually happened. When they began that final uphill leg, Draake had hoisted the rope, and thereby the entire weight of the front portion of the sled, onto his shoulder. That act shifted the remaining load enough to relieve the rest of the team of its increasing resistance.

"You did well, Itsu," Draake said from his slumped position, not even raising his head. He could see Ron's shadow on the grass beside him. "You and your kind showed what you are capable of. Once again, I am impressed."

Draake sounded exhausted and humbled as the words came out, and just as before, Ron was shocked at the compliment.

"Well, from what I see of my Benoi captain, I'm absolutely astonished!"

It was obvious to him that their gigantic leader had literally shouldered the load there at the end, but he had to admit too that he and his human counterparts had accomplished their duties commendably.

"All in all, I think we make a pretty good team," Ron added, slapping Al and Brome hard on the shoulders.

Up above the field, the stands had erupted in ear-shattering noise when the Outcasts had accomplished the impossible. The vibration of the screams, whistles, roars, and chants was absolutely deafening. That's why it took Cache Kuar so long to realize just what was happening.

Three booths to her right, two large, dangerous-looking men were dragging a patron from his luxury box.

"What's going on?" he yelled at them.

They said something back to him gruffly that she couldn't make out over the din around them, and then he looked even more confused.

"Cheating? Gambling? I haven't bet on a single event! You guys..."

A third person moved in quickly and hastily toggled through the holo-viewer at his seat.

Several other spectators were beginning to stare by then and a crowd quickly gathered.

The men who were still restraining the confused fellow quickly drew disruptor pistols and everyone suddenly backed away.

The sitting man then shook his head and said something to the others. It sounded like; "No, he's not the one. This unit has nothing registered. Someone must have hijacked this station's signal to cover their tracks!"

Cache was already easing away by that point, headed for the exit and thanking whomever it was who'd sent her that warning. She'd begun masking her identity after the Marksmanship competition, and arranged for her pseudo-self to be close enough to actually see when they made their move. Now she knew things would be getting interesting. She still couldn't restrain a smile though, because she'd bet heavily on the Outcasts...at four to one odds.

High overhead, the command center of the _Confarii_ was completely silent. Every one of the fourteen operators sat as still as stone while Goruthe stared unblinkingly at the center viewer in his booth. It was quite obvious that this seemingly innocuous assignment had turned dire, and the longer he sat at his post, the shorter he saw his life getting.

"How could our team lose?" raced around and around in his mind at a pace that caused him to huff audibly. His heart ran like he'd just been in that hellacious contest on Ruutarzy himself, and a sheen of perspiration coated his entire body even though it was actually rather chilly in the room.

Behind him, Arsisi's heart sped along at a ferocious pace as well, as did all the humans watching. She'd been hanging onto the remote (nearly insane) hope that the Outcasts might actually be able to beat the mighty Lords' team...and every time they did, it was like a shot of adrenaline straight into her system.

Without warning however, the viewer suddenly replaced the scene on the ground far below with that of a Kreete Reaper Class warrior. It was Jaheel Toir, Goruthe's superior and the person responsible for his having the lofty position he'd been granted. The fellow did not look pleased.

"WHAT IS THE MEANING OF THIS?" the Reaper demanded, spittle frothing at the corners of his wide, horrid mouth.

"Reaper, Jaheel! Sir, I guarantee you the calculations were perfect! There was no possible way they could have towed that sled to the end...except..."

"EXCEPT THEY DID!"

Goruthe stayed seated, his mind running full tilt to come up with a way to slither out of the noose he was in.

"But there was no way we could foresee what that Ultra would do! I mean, how could he even manage it?"

Jaheel didn't bother with a reply. It was not his problem to manage. It was Goruthe's.

"Tomorrow's competition will return the lead to us, my Lord," Goruthe hurriedly pledged. "I promise! I helped choose the course myself more than three santaris ago."

Jaheel sat back a bit in his own chair at that, but his anger did not diminish. "You had better be right!"

The screen then returned to the planet-side view, and Arsisi watched her master grip the arm of his seat tighter and tighter, squeezing out his anxiety until it groaned.

"If it doesn't, I'm a dead man," he muttered too low for her to make out. Then he rose and left in a hurry.

As she watched Goruthe storm out of the room again, she literally vibrated with excitement.

### Chapter Twenty-seven

### The Marathon

Day 7:

Morning in the ship would have been comical if it weren't so serious. Not a single member of the team could stand straight or walk without limping badly. Ron felt as sore and stiff as he had the day after fighting Draake back on Parkanick.

They gathered around the mess table for breakfast like normal, but even trying to hold utensils was a chore, so it was slow going.

The chatter of the new day started out as gloomy as their overall mood.

"How the dragen sart are we supposed to compete today?" Bart asked amongst the grumbling.

"I don't know," Dex chimed in while attempting to hold a cup of hot liquid between fingers that vibrated badly. The strain from hauling on the rope had left all their hands quivering and difficult to control.

Ron fought through the waves of intense protests from his overworked muscles, stayed quiet, and wolfed down his food in earnest. All the complaining would get them no reprieve from the day's event, so why bother?

"Well, they can just count me out this time," Fraidze announced after the third time he dropped his spoonful of Vorilis eggs. "I can't even..."

"Stop your bellyaching!" came a loud order from off to their right. It was Draake. The med-station had repaired his wound nicely, and he was his usual gruff self again. "We will all report to the event on time and face the challenge!"

The table instantly went silent.

"You have fifteen borts!" he growled and then headed off for the exit. He needed some fresh air.

The sounds he heard behind him were those of men shoveling food into their mouths. Gone were the lamenting of disgruntled babies.

Exactly fifteen borts later, the team was together outside the ship, lined up and ready to march...although this time it was not necessary. The auburn sky was dotted with small airships, and one was drifting down right before them.

The vessel was small, merely a fourteen passenger shuttle, and it was designed with an open cabin...a convertible. The outer configuration of the craft was sleek and elegant, with flowing lines reminding Ron of some vintage cars he'd seen at an auto show.

A slim, young, very peppy fellow hopped down and approached the giant Benoi captain who towered over two feet above his head. He managed to keep a smile on his face, although it shuddered for a few litas, and then took a nervous gulp of air.

"Sir, Draake; if you please, I need you and your team to board this shuttle for transport to today's venue."

He continued to smile politely but Ron could clearly see his knees were vibrating. He was absolutely terrified!

Draake looked down at the man and nodded...his fearsome visage never breaking to relieve the lad of his obvious qualms. He then turned to the team and waved them forward.

The seats were well padded for the heavy-worlders they supported, and the men smiled grandly at the luxury of the ride. Even the Benoits were accommodated adequately, which was surprising to them. Normally they were forced to stand, or sit on the floor...normal chairs being far too flimsy to hold them.

The pilot was proficient in his duties and so they were aloft in moments, gliding over the treetops at an ever-increasing speed.

The view was breathtaking. Bart and Dex both gasped audibly at the beauty of the land stretching out beneath them. It was the rolling hills Ron had so admired, with their loftier cousins...the snow-capped mountains...now directly south, and a great, turquoise blue bay to the east. They could make out distant towns here and there, as well as rich farmland in abundance.

The pilot flew northward for half a billot, until the mountains could no longer be seen behind them and all the ground beneath was flat and wet. It was the delta region of a convergence of six rivers, and it spread out over ten thousand square hoz. The shuttle began decreasing speed when it neared an area that had been recently cleared of the normal chest-high marsh grass.

The ship suddenly shook hard, as if something had struck it, and the pilot's head whipped about quickly as did those in the cabin, to see what their ears had registered. They all settled on a single figure...Draake Tarbold. His massive fist rested on a partially crumpled console panel. His eyes were still peering out the shuttle at the ground, and then he exchanged glances with his fellows. Al and Brome both nodded and shook their heads in disgust.

"What is it now?" Ron asked in the Benoi tongue.

"The 'Lords' have done it again," Al answered. Draake was too angry to speak. "They have a venue on ground too soft to support those like us."

Ron glanced out at the delta they were landing in and understood. He was originally from southwest Louisiana and knew all too well how that type of soil reacted to heavy objects. Trucks, cars, animals, and even people had been lost to the stuff they call "gumbo mud". An event held in that soft, slimy soil would be like trying to compete in quicksand for the Ultras.

When they stepped off the ship, Draake sank to his ankles.

"Sart!" he hissed.

"If you please, sirs," the attendant/pilot said nervously, "the gathering point for the teams is that way."

They all looked east and saw the hordes of team members moving toward the congregation area. At the center was a raised dais with Larshe standing atop it waiting patiently.

Draake moved off in a slogging manner, grumbling at every step, with his teammates in tow.

Ron's mind was in overdrive, trying to imagine some way to get around this new obstacle. The only thing was, he still didn't know what the challenge was going to be. As he turned to fall in behind the others though, a comment stopped him cold.

"This is my homeland," said the attendant softly...his eyes darting to the ground when Ron's fell upon him.

At first, Ron was going to just smile and continue along, but his instincts caused him more pause. He suddenly felt the need to adjust his boot.

He gave a half limp and then plopped down on the ground and pulled off his shoe.

"It is beautiful country here. It reminds me of my own home."

The young man turned away casually and put his hand to his brow, gazing at the western sky.

"It has been unusually dry this season," he added as if talking to himself. "Hard to get a skiff up the channels."

Ron had his boot back on by then and stood once more, facing east. His thoughts were racing but he didn't say a word. He knew he was being watched.

"Good luck, Shartae," the attendant breathed so low Ron almost missed it, before the lad climbed back into the shuttle.

Ron was in mid-step and nearly stumbled at the shock of those words.

"How the hell does everyone know me?" he pondered briefly before his focus returned to the other statement.

He was far behind by then, so he strode away quickly to catch up. He rejoined his team just as they drew close to the podium, and then they all awaited the announcement. A few borts later Larshe began his instructions.

"Welcome to the Shaborzy Delta. Today's event is called the Derson Trek. It is a simple foot-race...from here to the Borson Falls. They are fifty hoz to the southeast."

Several low whistles escaped the competitors at that, and many eyebrows rose as well.

"Fifty hoz!" Fraidze grumbled.

Draake shot him a quick glare that quelled his complaints, but there were enough from others to force Larshe to take a few moments to let it settle.

"Each participant will be provided with a backpack that contains enough water and food for two days, fifty peors of rope, and a small emergency med-kit. Each team will have a Cnaut companion hovering no less than twenty peors above them which will provide coverage for the viewers and act as an emergency beacon should someone become incapacitated and need evacuation.

"If you will please focus your attention on the map here," he said as he held up his hand.

A holo-map sprang to life beside him showing an aerial view of the marshland. It was clear and vivid enough to make many in attendance gasp at the marvel of technology. Ron was highly impressed, but managed to overcome his awe and scan the picture thoroughly.

"We are here," Larshe continued. "You must reach this point," he added indicating a distant location where one of the rivers dropped a good thirty feet...the final elevation shift from its mountainous headwaters...to dump into the delta basin. "During your journey, you must not hinder or aid the progress of any other team. In fact, if anyone touches a member of a team other than their own, they will be disqualified and forfeit any points they might have received.

"Are there any questions?"

"What about the heavy-worlders?" asked Jallel, Captain of the Thespiat crew. They were from a class 10.5 planet. "This land will be deadly to us. We cannot swim on your world."

"Because this is not considered a 'deadly' challenge, we have taken precautions for that. The Cnauts assigned to any team that hails from a world more than .2 gradients above Ruutarzy is fully capable of a water rescue if warranted. However, if they are needed, the associated player is ruled 'DNF-Did Not Finish', and your team will be penalized for that."

That news was at least a relief for the Benoits and their team members. If worst came to worst, they shouldn't lose anyone.

There were a few other questions about guidance toward the finish and help stations along the way, but Ron was too busy to hear them. He was memorizing the land between them and their goal. Every bend in the river-ways, every patch of ground, and every field of marsh grass went into his mental file.

When they dispersed to prearranged positions along a wide, open meadow, he was ready.

"Okay, guys," Dex said when they gathered into a last minute huddle. "How the hell are we going to find those falls. "All I know is that they're that way," he told them pointing to the horizon.

"It will not be difficult," Ron replied casually. "But it is actually that way," he added, holding his index finger up to a point about ten degrees farther south than Dex had indicated.

"Among our group," Draake told them, "Itsu is the most skilled land navigator. We will give him point and follow as quickly as we can. Although, I don't know how well that will go," he said grimly, looking down at his feet that were two inches into the soft turf. "We will have to see."

Each team was lined up in a row, with the leader ahead of his six teammates in single file. The ground was fairly firm at the starting line, but it was a very long way to the other end, and Ron's brain was scorching along for some viable plan.

A straight line was totally out of the question for any of the teams. The way was pock-marked with swampy, impassable terrain that would have to be circumnavigated. There simply was no direct route. Many of the least indirect courses were across deep rivers that would have to be swum if taken, so they were out. That left a rather out-of-the-way path before them...but it too called for criss-crossing many smaller rivers and those channels the boy had...!

Ron shook hard when he grasped what he'd just realized. The map he'd memorized was well-marked and designated natural, as well as man-made, waterways. He then relied on his experiences from Earth and formulated a new plan.

Without a word to the rest of the team, he narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips in a wry smile.

"Boooooom!" sounded the cannon, marking the beginning of the race.

Everyone set off in the same direction for the initial two hoz, but then the way was fractured into multiple opportunities and the teams scattered from there. The Kreete headed eastward, to the route that showed the firmest ground. It was logical and clearly the best choice for heavy-worlders, but Ron did not follow. He knew all too well that humans couldn't possibly keep pace with Kreete soldier for more than a few hoz. Their conditioning was too good, their legs too long, and their genetically enhanced endurance too powerful. But...they were taking a long, winding route!

Instead, he angled off west-southwest, toward the softest marshland on the entire map. Four other squads followed them, but he knew they were only Niners and would simply fall off the pace soon enough.

Bart was also an accomplished outdoorsman though, and questioned Ron's choice right away...loudly.

"Ron, this is the wrong direction! It will lead us straight into the Clearion Marshland."

Draake heard that and shot a questioning look to his chosen guide.

Ron glanced back and saw the distance between them and the trailing groups, and smiled. It was just as he'd expected. They had followed only because Draake's team was leading the competition, and they thought it was a safe bet. But when they heard Bart's assessment, they all pulled up short and gathered for their own strategy sessions.

Ron turned to his fellows and winked at them. "Trust me."

On they ran for another billot before they crested a small rise and faced what Bart had forecast, and feared; twenty hoz of marsh grass.

At that point, they called a halt to the run and walked and drank from their water containers. They were huffing pretty hard, but not too badly winded. Their lives in the mines of Parkanick had been a nearly non-stop cardio workout, so they were well prepared for endurance.

Draake looked across the seemingly unending grass with great disdain. He'd seen similar areas on his own planet and knew the ground would be soft...very soft.

"Itsu!" he barked. "Why the dragen sart have you taken us here? Brome, Al, and I will never be able to..."

"This area is in the midst of a rare, prolonged drought," he told them casually, drinking deeply and snacking on a wafer from his pack as he strode forward unconcerned.

"So what?" Dex queried, being unfamiliar with such terrain. "The mud won't be quite as muddy?"

"No," Ron laughed. "You see, in the old days of Earth...my home planet...the earliest civilized people used bricks to build their homes. Those bricks were made of mud that had been shaped into standard sizes and set out in the intense heat of the near tropical sun to dry. They even strengthened those bricks by adding straw...or grass."

He then pointed at the vast level ground ahead of them. "When marshland...which is made up solely of mud and rotting grass...dries up, it turns..."

"Hard as stone!" Draake finished, spreading an enormous smile across his wide, brutish face.

The rest of the team all stared at him like he was truly a genius. Ron just winked back at them.

"Now, I don't know for sure how thick it is, so we'll have to lead with the humans and find the firmest route for the Benoits to follow, but it should be doable."

"Agreed," Draake replied quickly.

"We might have to weave a serpentine course through there, but it'll certainly be better than picking our way back and forth along the winding banks of the rivers the Benoits could never cross."

Everyone nodded collectively as they ate.

Once they were watered and fed, they struck out again, running as fast as they felt they safely could. And when they reached the far side of that broad plain four billots later, they all began laughing hysterically at the ease of its crossing, congratulating Ron over and over.

They walked and refreshed themselves once more; continuing on the course Ron kept to, and felt the land rising slowly, growing drier and sandier. Another two billots found them at the crest of a twenty-peor-tall embankment of fine, brown silica, and before them lay the open waters of the Bay of Pinsharce.

Draake and his fellow Ultras smiled broadly once more at Ron's cunning, before racing to the water's edge.

"Brilliant!" Al bellowed when he stood upon the hard-packed sand that trimmed the water's edge. "How far can we take this?"

"To within about ten hoz of the falls," Bart answered for Ron, having studied the map in great detail as well. He grabbed Ron by the shoulders then, and shook him hard, grinning like a madman. "And that route is all high-ground bedrock, isn't it, Itsu!"

"You know...I believe it is!" Ron admitted playfully.

When the Kreete team rounded the final bend and loped across the finish-line, they expected a standing ovation from their watching brethren in the stands that wrapped all the way around the breathtaking falls. But what they found instead was so shocking, they all had to stop and stare, even while desperately trying to catch their breath.

The section devoted solely to the Kreete species was empty. Not a single soul was in sight. That's when their team captain, Grayle Neese, let his eyes search out the holographic scoreboard hanging in midair off to their left. The first place team's name was already written atop that giant display.

Draake's squad had arrived a full half-billot ahead of them!

Grayle Neese nearly collapsed from the shock.

By sundown on Ruutarzy, Itsu held the moniker of Tournament Champion, Cache Kuar had expanded her fortune a hundred-fold, and Goruthe's body was already adrift in space.

### Chapter Twenty-eight

### Field Hockey

The second stop on the circuit of the Games of the Triad took the teams to a planet called Deamiine, a four day jaunt in transoptic flight. Draake's team welcomed it wholeheartedly, using the time to recuperate and regroup.

"This event marks the beginning of the real Games," Draake told them as their yacht detached from the _Shurnoot_ and headed toward the atmosphere. "These next six challenges will involve differing, and most likely increasing degrees of danger, and will require teamwork and intelligence far beyond the initial 'warm-up' stage."

After that announcement, everyone just watched the strange new world grow larger in the view screens.

The landing zone was over ten square hoz in size, but because the Outcasts were performing well, they were given a coveted position closest to the new venue. That particular setting turned out to be a massive coliseum sitting barely two hoz away.

As the team members stepped out of the ship, they all took a few borts to look around at the foreign planet they now strode upon. The sky was dark blue above them with pink clouds dotting the distant skyline. The rising orange sun appeared to push a magenta halo ahead of itself as it heaved slowly over the horizon to start a new dawn.

There was a soft breeze wafting along from the south, carrying with it an aromatic collage of a thousand scents. The inherent strangeness of it instantly coerced Ron into taking a long, deep draft...one that he held for several moments while his senses sifted through it. The pure excitement of such a unique opportunity trumped the seriousness of their mission...at least for a few borts...and produced a broad smile across his deeply tanned face. He would forevermore brand the distinct smells of this planet with the outcome of the week's trials, and so his mind quickly gathered the information, broke it down, analyzed, and categorized it.

It was cool and sweet, and had almost a wintergreen tang to it. It gave him a yearning wish to explore...to set his feet flying across the grassland and into the thick forest less than a hoz away. What type of creatures awaited him there? Large, small, swift, poisonous? Would it be safe and Eden-like, or would the opposite be true...a place of true, horrifying danger? His mind ran wild with the possibilities as his keen eyes carefully swept the scene and he absentmindedly licked his lips.

Unfortunately however, after another moment or two, the purpose of their visit reminded him that he would likely never get that chance, so he called a halt to the daydream. That didn't stop his survey though, nor the others'.

High overhead there were a few wispy clouds drifting silently off to the west and south, and a few hundred peors to the north, a flock of large birds with red and black wings glided on the building thermals of the new day, heading east.

After the long captivity on Parkanick it seemed that everyone on the team was in the mood for a little visual adventure, and so they all walked about drinking in the feel of the place.

It didn't take long before Draake called them to attention however, and they headed off in the direction marked with bright yellow flags and manned by dozens of officials motioning the contestants to follow the path.

The beauty and serenity of Deamiine entranced them to a point that the walk seemed relatively short for Draake's group, their heads shifting left to right the entire time. And unlike the Feats of Strength, they were informed of the competition straight away so that allowed for a bit less apprehension as well.

Once they arrived at the designated site, the teams were funneled through a special entrance in a massive outdoor stadium that was lined on both sides with screaming spectators, and that was a mind-boggling sight in and of itself.

There were numerous civilian attendants representing their world who were extremely excited about being part of such a monumental occasion. They milled about the stadium dressed in uniforms that were incredibly bright yellow, and so from a distance they looked like canaries flitting around the dark green, grass-covered ground.

Ron noticed their dark skin and copper-colored hair and recalled their species from his studies back on Rauld. Deamiineans were much like most humanoid groups, being bipeds, but had unusually wide heads. Their eyes and mouths were fitting of their broad faces but their noses were uncommonly narrow.

They were by far not the most disconcerting bunch either, and in fact, turned out to be rather friendly and gregarious. They eagerly informed the participants that the event here was a group team sport. They did not give away the actual name of the competition, but as they described it, the game sounded to Ron like a form of field hockey, and two on his team had seen at least one version of it played...Dex and Bart.

Thirty borts later, the formality of the Games took over with a loud horn and a quick blast of fireworks gathering everyone's attention.

A rail-thin fellow standing on a gleaming brass podium spread his hands out wide and spoke.

"Welcome!" he said in a high, piercing voice. "Welcome one and all to the world of Deamiine!"

The crowd erupted in thunderous applause for a good two borts before he could continue.

"I am Chancellor Histor Poose of the high council of our primary city, Lambria, and it is the honor of the Deamiinean people to have been selected by the Lords to host the second segment of the ninety-second edition of the Games of the Triad.

"This venue is the sight of the first challenge that will pit each team shoulder to shoulder against their opponents. It is called Yart Piidge!"

"Oh, that's just great!" Ron muttered in a deep, soft growl.

"What?" Fraidze whispered back at him. "What's wrong?"

"Yart Piidge...in their language...translates literally to mean; Death Ball!"

Fraidze' expression snapped from curious to frightened in an instant.

"Greaaaaaat!" he sighed.

Histor explained to the entire audience that the open field stadium where the game was to take place held three different fields. Each was separated by an energy barrier that was invisible to the crowd but looked and acted like a solid wall to the players.

As he listened, Ron took in the sights of the immense facility. It reminded him of his college's football stadium in width, but the overall length was easily four times that. Also, the seats were much more plush...more like a professional stadium's box-seats. Apparently they were intended for the patrons to spend many billots in them. And there were hundreds of the yellow-clad Deamiineans roaming the aisles too, constantly attending to the needs of the audience.

Ron got the feeling that those in the stands were no doubt very wealthy...having flown in from across the Triad to be in close physical proximity to the action.

"To explain the rules of the game, we have the commander of the Prieas-taru (Flame-throwers) team...Yiry Volte`."

The crowd went wild at the announcement of the man's name, so Ron guessed that he was very well known to those who followed the sport. It took some time before the cheering subsided enough for Histor to continue.

"For those watching who are not familiar with Yart Piidge, the Prieas-taru are the only five time champions representing this sector of the galaxy...and Yiry is a native of Deamiine!"

The crowd went wild again for another few litas as the resident champion stepped forward.

"Thank you all for that warm reception," Yiry began. "It is good to be back home again. Now for the rules. A match of Yart Piidge is comprised of two teams with five players per side, and takes place on an open field such as those before us. The object of the game is to take the piidge from your side of the field, through the opposing team's defense, and deposit it into one of the seven goals at the other end."

"That doesn't sound too bad," Dex inserted.

Ron merely scowled at Yiry and continued listening. Obviously there was much more to it than that.

"This is a wicket," the fellow told them, holding up a device that looked amazingly like a field hockey wicket; although much bigger. It was about four feet long and had a basket at one end with a rather solid looking ball-end at the other...apparently a counterbalance of some kind. Too, Ron imagined it would make a rather formidable weapon in the right hands.

"You catch and pass with the wicket," Yiry continued, "and score of course. I shall demonstrate in a moment. But be mindful that if you receive the piidge, you must rid yourself of it within seven litas...either to a teammate, or for a goal. If you do not, the handle will send a charged current through your body that is rather painful. If you still do not relinquish it, the charge will grow more intense until you do...or until you die!"

Innumerous eyes instantly flew wide and mouths dropped open with that statement.

"This is a piidge," he then said, holding up a dark ball the size of a grapefruit. It appeared to be a rock, but had some odd looking holes drilled into it. Everyone wondered about that immediately...at least those who weren't familiar with the sport. "It has some heft to it, which allows for some interesting play, but when activated," he said dropping the ball into the basket before nodding to another official off to the left, "it adds another dimension."

He then tossed the ball up into the air about ten feet. As soon as the piidge cleared the basket, it sprouted inch-long tines all over its surface. They looked incredibly sharp.

"Now we're getting somewhere," Ron said as he absorbed that little twist.

Bart and Fraidze glared open-mouthed at the ball.

"You may not touch the piidge with your hands at any point, or be sent from the field for no less than five borts...which would leave your teammates one man short and open for a power play. Also, the spines can penetrate any glove...or any skin...with ease and are coated with a rather nasty poison. If contact is made, it is a very painful injury, but if it should penetrate your hand or arm, it often renders the offender incapable of holding the wicket. The effects are short-lived, no more than a billot or two, but are certain to inhibit play. Also, players must keep a close eye on the piidge since aggressive contact with your body...especially the head...can be fatal.

"The goals at each end are mounted to a wooden wall that is two peors thick, and thereby sturdy enough even for the 'Ultras' to run into without fear of it falling. There are seven goals per side. These goals are no more than lighted, colored rings imbedded into the wooden structure. They change color in a random fashion, going from white to red. The one circled in red is the one you must score in. If you put the piidge in the wrong goal, it is an automatic point for the other team, and they get control of the piidge.

"You may pass the piidge at any time to one of your teammates, but you cannot hand it off...and it cannot touch the ground. If it strikes the ground it is given to the other side and thereby those on offense change to defense.

"You may intercept the piidge at any time, or down the carrier and take it from him as long as you do not touch it with your hands...as I have already stated. That being said, your wickets are both offensive and defensive weapons.

"There are no limitations to what you may do to get the carrier to release the piidge, but you may not strike another player with your wicket unless he has the piidge. Doing so will result in expulsion from the game with no replacement."

Ron's mind flew into overdrive at the potential avenues this game could take. If a team wanted a certain individual from the other side to be permanently out of the contest, a single infraction could manage that fairly well.

"Now if you wish to block for your carrier, you may do so in any fashion you choose...as long as you do not use your wicket."

The announcer paused for a few moments to allow the information to sink in. Ron didn't hesitate.

"What about the piidge? Can it be used as a weapon?"

The fellow smiled with a wary, wry grin. "I see you catch on quickly," he told Ron, but then his eyes swept the entire group. "The carrier may do with it what he will. Just don't put it through the wrong goal."

"What about the field itself?" Draake asked, already knowing the answer. "Are there any specific rules that apply to it?"

"Yes...there are. The boundaries of the playing field are trimmed with a peor-wide yellow strip," he explained, motioning to the nearest pitch. "Beyond that, the area of play is guarded by an energy barrier. If you step outside the line, you will receive a powerful electric jolt that will immobilize that limb for a good bort or two. If your arm crosses the boundary, it will feel like it was burned. If your entire body crosses over, the pain is intense and often causes nausea, disorientation, and even temporary blindness. Of course that experience is repeated when you return to the field because play does not stop, and substitutions cannot be made until the piidge either strikes something it should not, or is put into a goal. Also, if you don't return to the field within five borts, your team is disqualified."

"What happens if you miss a goal altogether?" asked a fellow from over to the right.

"A missed goal causes the spines to retract and the piidge drops to the ground. You can continue play if you catch it before it touches the ground, but if it does, it goes to the other team.

"What if the piidge goes outside the playing area?"

"The person who last controlled it must retrieve it."

Dex let out a low whistle. "These Deamiineans play some rough games!"

Ron nodded in agreement with all the others.

"Very well. If there are no more questions, we will draw for the first match-ups.

The following half-billot saw the captains receiving their first opponents, and then all the teams were lead away except for the first six. They moved off to the indicated playing areas.

As they filed out of the stadium, Ron saw the stands beginning to rumble with eager spectators. The nostalgic memory wasn't pleasant. Too many horrible recollections drifted to the forefront of his mind, from his days in the Retribution Games. Ron knew what they wanted to see...blood!

Two billots later, Draake's team strolled into the stadium once again. This time the crowd exploded with cheers and a thunderous chant of their team's name and the place shook from the reverie.

Ron felt more at ease by then, shaking off the foreboding feelings he'd conjured earlier, and had even begun looking forward to the game. He always liked the excitement of a new challenge. That couldn't be spread around to the others though. The Benoits seemed calm enough, but the other humans wore a mixture of trepidation and all out fear on their faces.

A long look at the towering grandstands revealed that every seat in the gargantuan coliseum was filled, and the yellow-clad hawkers roamed among them excitedly plying their wares. It all looked so normal...so festive. It could have been any city in the U.S. on a Saturday afternoon...be it football, or baseball, or soccer...until he looked closer at the fans. When that inspection was made, it would be impossible to mistake some of the more unique looking patrons for any Earth man or woman.

"Please take your positions at the north end of the southern field," the judge told Draake. He was a large, stout fellow with a stern disposition and a no-nonsense attitude.

Draake's team jogged slowly out to the designated end and watched while their opponents did likewise.

The sun stood high in the blue sky with only a few puffy white clouds drifting across the wide expanse. Ron's eyes were again solid black as he panned the grassy terrain, his Caronian glands working well. The breeze was light and directly in his face, so he gave it a deep gulp. His face suddenly twitched and his jaw set tight before he uttered a warning to his team.

"Blood has been spilt here," he declared solemnly. "A lot of it!"

Fraidze nodded as he gripped his wicket tightly, wondering what they were about to endure.

They faced the Marisiles...a humanoid species from a 9.9 planet. They were tall and lean, fast, well-coordinated and well disciplined. Ron had been keeping tabs on them since the beginning events. They always managed to stay close to the top score in the preceding events, and they looked like they were comfortable with this one.

"Draake," Ron said while staring at the scoring goals behind their position. "Are you familiar with this sport?"

He too was watching the seven ringed goals mounted into a wall that appeared to be solid hickory. Three were high...about twenty feet above the ground. Four others were lower, at about ten feet. Each goal's diameter was a different size too. The majority ranged from a typical basketball hoop size to about a full peor in width. As they watched, one goal would have a red ring lighted around it. That stayed lit for only about seven litas, and then it would swap to another.

"Somewhat," the giant replied.

"The goal's alternation pattern seems to be on a totally random cycle," Ron deduced after a couple borts of watching.

"It would appear so," the giant concurred.

"Okay, Draake," Dex spoke up. "What's the plan?"

"Well, the game is the first one to fourteen points. The upper goals count as two points and the lower goals are one, so we at least have a few tries to understand their strategy before we're beaten. Everyone take an opponent and shadow them. And learn fast!"

"LINE UP WITH YOUR BACKS AGAINST THE SCORING WALL!" shouted the judge. He stood well off the field.

At the last lita, Draake gave a quick order.

"Dex, you're the fastest of the humans. You get the piidge. We'll clear a lane to the goal."

As soon as they were all in position, the head referee standing in the center of the seventy-peor-long field dropped the piidge and backed up in a hurry. At the sounding of a sharp chime, the piidge sprouted its evil-looking spines to instantly resemble a frightened porcupine...and the game began.

They all bolted from the wall like Olympic sprinters, but the Benoits fairly exploded forward. The planet's comparably light gravity, even though they were weighted down to mediate the odds, could not hold them. Their steps were twice as long as Ron and Dex could manage, and so they were more than ten peors ahead when they reached mid-field.

Instead of pulling up short like most Earthlings would have done, they dove forward and flung their bodies out horizontally, bowling over the three closest Marisile players. Two of those men leaped almost clear of the massive Benoits, only getting clipped and falling roughly to the turf, but one of the red-skinned teammates couldn't get himself up high enough to clear Al's wide shoulders and took the Ultra's full speed block solidly. He went down with a loud expulsion of air followed quickly by screams of agony.

Nonetheless, play continued while he lay there, his legs both snapped badly and an arm folded back over him in a horrid fashion.

Dex didn't flinch at the scene. He scooped up the piidge without breaking stride and hurtled the fallen men in the next three steps. Now though, the Benoits were behind him and he had to face the rest of the enemy team. Luckily one of them broke off to intercept Ron, but the final man fairly frothed at the mouth with anticipation of a clash.

As that fellow rushed forward with his wicket at the ready, clearly attacking with great ferocity, Dex glanced right. Ron was in a nasty brawl with his man however, trying to rid himself of the surly guy without using his wicket as a weapon, so that avenue was no good. Feet and elbows flew and collided and they both went down.

Dex's only avenue was to do his best to score, but he'd already held the piidge five litas and had to get rid of it. That meant he had to get past the charging fellow or go through him, but he had no time to consider it because the man was right on top of him. Up he leaped, but the other player read his move easily, having forced him into this position on purpose. He'd banked on Dex's wish to score above any other desire, but he had misread one thing. Dex wasn't one to fall prey to intimidation.

Instead of flinging the piidge high and above him, floating the ball in a long shot that was chancy at best, he brought his wick down hard and swift.

"You want it?" he thought with real menace lacing his decision. "Then take it!"

The heavy ball...a perfect sphere made of some super-hardened metal...streaked forward like it was shot from a cannon, straight at the closest enemy. Those needle spines would undoubtedly rip a nasty wound out of anyone it struck and take them off the field, but...

Dex had expected panic from the Marisile player. However, all he got was a satisfied smirk as the fellow twisted his torso expertly and let the piidge pass harmlessly by. The throw was nowhere near the wall of targets when it fell to the ground either, stopping the game immediately to change possession.

The Marisiles' teammates slapped hands and laughed heartily while their replacement player ran onto the field and the injured one was carried off.

"Shit!" Dex said quickly, furious with himself. It was a rookie mistake...a bad opening move on a treacherous chess match. He jogged over to his team hurriedly, running through a nonstop string of expletives under his breath. "Sorry, guys. I thought I could take one of them out because of their aggressive play, but they were just toying with me."

"Forget it," Brome told him tersely. "It's obvious that they know what they're doing. Just pick your man and stay on him...and watch their strategy!"

The Marisiles were truly gifted at the sport. They knew just when to take a cheap shot at the members of Draake's team, and exactly where to strike in order to trip them up so an ally could get clear. They raced down the field in one fluid wave, hardly slowing enough to give their opponents even a slight chance at the piidge, and they stayed clear of the Benoits. Six perfect passes later, their team captain leaped high against the wall and stuffed the ball into one of the upper goals. The spikes on the piidge locked into the wooden surface of the wall like Velcro, clearly showing the score.

Once the Marisiles got the piidge, it was five consecutive trips down the field before Draake's team touched it again. The score stood at ten to nothing, and if Al hadn't managed to crush his man against two others at the scoring wall, they would have had twelve. (That fellow had to be carted off the field and straight to the med-station) The piidge fell to the turf and so the Outcasts got their chance.

This time, Ron took the piidge and bolted for the other end with Brome leading the charge and Draake and Al as secondary blockers forming a nice 'V'. Ron and Fraidze took turns tossing the spiny ball between themselves safely behind the wall of the Ultras.

After that, they kept the same strategy time after time, only swapping their players positions slightly, and giving the other team a lesson in aggressive play that had nothing to do with style. It was like the Roman Legion's Phalanx moving against a lighter, less powerful army. The game ended shortly thereafter with only three of the Marisiles players still walking.

"That went all right," Draake said afterward, "but when we face some of the other teams, it won't be so easy. We will have to work on our passing."

### Chapter Twenty-nine

### The Sophiers

The next game later that day was harder because the team they faced was extremely tough.

The Sophiers were large men, bigger even than Fraidze, and were from a class 10.1 planet...Sophi. Their heads were shaved into a split Mohawk coif forming a V at their foreheads, and they had very widely spaced eyes. Their muscles were thick and well developed, making them appear even more intimidating...and they were fierce!

Their first move toward the piidge appeared completely insane. They bunched together shoulder to shoulder and charged at the Benoits as if they would bowl them over with their combined mass. That strategy had no doubt worked on other teams, but anyone with any real sense would have known it would never work here. Draake practically drooled as he watched them approach.

"This should be fun!" he said to his kinsmen in his native tongue.

However, just when they saw Draake and his fellows lean forward into the attack, they used their class ten-plus muscles and leaped up and over the astonished giants in a blink. There was nothing Draake, Brome, or Al could do but watch.

The Sophi players fanned out with their leap too, so as to cover as much area as possible, and caught the human Outcasts flat. Bart had the piidge, just having received a pass from Dex, and his eyes flew wide at the incoming threat. Two dove in at Bart in a double-teamed effort, overwhelming him and bludgeoning him viciously. Dex went down hard too, but they couldn't use their wickets against him, so he just took a harsh beating before the Benoits could recover and come to his aid.

The Sophi players removed the piidge from Bart's unresponsive person and raced away down the field to score the first goal, laughing and congratulating each other on the marvelous play. Bart was taken from the field on a stretcher and carried directly to a med-station.

Draake motioned for Ron and Fraidze to take the field, giving Dex a chance to recover.

"You see what is happening, right?" Draake asked them.

Ron was already amped up and steaming with anticipation, as was Fraidze. They both nodded and set their jaws.

"Good. Then let's go!"

The match immediately continued with the Sophi team controlling the piidge, but they didn't hesitate much before willingly giving it away. As they ran forward to mid-field, they were spread out completely across the pitch. The Sophier with the piidge flipped it to his teammate, and then he to another, and so on, until the Outcasts were close. At that point, their player made a lazy toss that looked as if it was merely a mistake, hanging it in the air right in front of Fraidze, who was spread from Brome on the left side. At the same time, three Sophi men rushed at Ron while screaming a loud battle cry. It looked like they'd targeted the smallest member of the Outcasts for another attack, so the Benoits broke into motion and converged there as well. That left Fraidze alone though, and he'd snagged the flying piidge!

Ron didn't retreat at the attack, and instead, rushed forward, singling out the opposing player nearest him. He dropped his wicket at the last instant and met the charging fellow with a flying tackle that took him down roughly and tightly entangled them. That's when the Sophi players were initiated into the long list of adversaries who'd decided they could handle the smaller man. In three fast tumbles, the growling, snarling, immensely quick figure of Ron Allison had broken four of the man's ribs, his jaw, and dislocated his right shoulder. At that point, he kicked the disabled player away and popped to his feet.

The other two attackers were in fast retreat from the Benoits, so Ron looked over at Fraidze. He was down and unmoving, and the two who'd done that were leaping to slam the piidge home once again.

Draake looked dejected and angry at having been played for the fool twice in a row.

The Sophiers were clearly out to cripple his team to the point that they had the superior numbers to win. And if they managed to take out the other two humans, it would be impossible to stop them from running the length of the field at their leisure. As it was, Dex was already limping.

The next round saw the Sophiers spread wide again, trying to thin the ranks of the Outcasts enough to isolate a man. Draake knew that if he bunched up his crew in the center to protect them the Sophier team would simply pass around them and score, so he put a Benoi left and right on the outside and he took the middle. That at least would force the action between them.

Each of the Benoits charged one of the Sophi players, but they were very fast and managed to elude capture every time, which drove Draake even further into rage, especially when one of them slipped around and helped his teammate get past Dex.

The only upside was that Ron had managed to engage his man and send him from the field with a badly wrenched knee.

By the fifth round of play, Draake was down to only four players on the field who could still move freely (Ron and the other Benoits) and their only replacement, Dex, who was all but useless because of a swelling ankle he could no longer even stand on.

The Sophiers still had five men active and the score was ten to nothing. All they needed was two more goals to win.

"Gather up!" Ron ordered while the Sophi team crossed to their end of the field. His face was fairly beaming as he spoke low and fast.

The Outcasts broke from a hasty strategy huddle just as the referee sounded the horn for round six to begin.

Draake started up the field with his fellow Benoits on either side and Ron at the far right. With their greater number, the Sophiers looked like they were going to continue with their plan, spread out wide and passing nimbly between themselves, but that all came to an abrupt halt when they reached mid-field.

The Outcasts couldn't cover all of their men, which forced them to wait for an opening, so that's exactly what they did. When the piidge entered flight from the man on the left of center to the player far to the right, it wasn't the only thing that took to the air.

The rules of the game said that the wickets could only be used as a weapon "by" someone in control of the piidge...or "against" someone with control of the piidge! They said nothing about how that could be done. Along those lines, Ron and Brome...the two Usurper players within reach of the receiving Sophi man...flung their wickets with all their strength "at" that man.

The Sophi players were very familiar with the sport, which accounted for their success, but they'd never seen anyone make that move before, so when the receiver caught that spiny sphere from his teammate, he was ill prepared to defend himself against those two incoming clubs.

Ron's struck him solidly in the gut, driving all the air from his lungs, and as he recoiled from that, Brome's smashed into his upper arm, snapping it and knocking him completely off his feet.

That caused a moment of horror to sweep through the Sophi team which froze them for a full lita...more than enough time for Draake and Al to strike.

Through the entire length of the game thus far, the Sophi players had eluded the Benoits with their great timing and impressive speed. But, while their startled eyes locked onto that unexpected play...and then their fallen man...they forgot the most important objective they'd set out with before the game had begun: Stay away from the Ultras!

"Time for a little pay-back!" Draake announced as he reeled in his opponent who'd just barely realized his error and turned to retreat.

Draake didn't care about the scoreboard at that point, and slammed his forearm full power into the captain of the other team as the man tried to sidestep him. That fellow went down so hard the crowd winced with a conjoined gasp, and everyone guessed his neck was broken when he didn't even flinch to get up.

Al only got in glancing blow at his target who was slightly quicker to break into motion, but it was still enough to knock him flat on his back. And by the time he understood exactly what had happened, Al's incoming fist slammed into his face with a crunch the audience heard all the way up in the thirtieth row.

In a span of ten litas, the Sophi team dropped from five fully-functional men down to two, and the Outcasts had the piidge. It was extremely disheartening to the Sophi squad, but the consequence was also dramatically obvious. As their broken and unconscious teammates left the field on the floating gurneys, they conceded the match by standing off to the side with their wickets on the ground and showing absolutely no aggression whatsoever.

The Outcasts casually jogged the next seven rounds, scoring unimpeded.

When Draake finally led his crippled team away for the night, they were more than eager to return to the ship and the medical facilities it housed.

It was a long, restless night for the whole team, wondering how much more punishment they could withstand before they fell apart for good, but that was the way of the Games. They got what sleep they could and simply hoped for the best.

The morning brought with it a slew of aches, pains, and stiff joints...and rain.

Luckily they only had one match that day and it went their way fairly easily because the Benoits still had excellent traction in the sloppy field due to their immense weight. Ron and the other humans merely had to divide the opponents' forces and stay out of their way. That welcome change allowed everyone to recover more too.

The weather cleared up with the following sunrise and stayed that way for the remainder of the week which raised the spirits of the team. The next three matches went well and their play became more refined. Most of the other teams looked pretty banged up from the early rounds too, and so when they faced the giant Benoits, they decided against taking the more brutal approach the Sophi squad had, which made it easier for the Outcasts to get through them.

That fortunate turn-around got them to the final match where, once more, they faced the Kreete squad.

Up in the audience, a petite blonde woman continued to amass a monumental treasure at the misfortune of the gambling sect of the Triad. By then she knew she was being hunted and so was covering her tracks with ingenious electronic misdirection and impregnable firewalls the Kreete trackers simply could not keep up with. She was finding the challenge of it almost as exciting as the matches down on the fields, but that distraction didn't keep her from worrying almost constantly about Ron.

There were so many ways the enemy could get to him out there on the ground that when the Outcasts were playing, she hardly blinked. She'd already programmed the _Darlile_ to take whatever action it deemed necessary to get to him should the need arise, and she was persistently edging closer toward that order, only able to stay her hand because of giving her word she would not. If Ron's life were in true peril though, she would abandon that oath without hesitation. She'd realized that during the second match.

Now, at the end of the week, she was more inclined to take that particular initiative than she'd ever been. Needless to say, she forgo betting on the outcome.

"This match is for the championship!" Histor announced jubilantly to the crowd on the seventh evening of the competition. "The only two teams with no losses stand against one another today for the final contest of the tournament. The Outcasts...the team with the Ultra-heavies, challenges the Lords' squad...the Destroyers! This match will go the full twenty-eight points, with a new addition for this cycle's games. The center upper goal has been moved two peors higher than the others and is half the size it had been. It will stay constantly lit and will be counted ten points!"

Bart let out a long whistle. "That looks awfully hard to hit!"

"Yeah," Fraidze added, "and I'd be willing to bet that the only ones ever to have practiced hitting it are walking onto the field right now."

The whole team grunted in agreement.

When they were lined up opposite Grayle's team, Ron noticed a change in their opponents. They all seemed to be larger than he'd remembered...more massive.

"Did they swap out their guys with another group?" he asked Draake, seeing that the giant was staring long and hard at them too.

"No. They wouldn't risk that humiliation...caught so openly cheating. They must have spent the night in chambers."

"Chambers? What's that?"

"After the takeover of my world, the Triad Games wouldn't allow us representation in their competition. I heard they were afraid of looking less than their usual incomparable selves. It wasn't until they found a way to enhance their strength to match ours that they opened it up to us. The way it's done is by using a special chamber that can temporarily increase their muscle mass. The results only last about half a day...and they can't do it very often or the side-affects will permanently ruin them...but it's a way to ensure they are as powerful as their bodies will possibly allow."

"I get what you're saying. They juiced up last night to make sure they kick our asses today!"

Draake grinned his twisted, repugnant smile. "Yeah...they did!"

Ron wondered why they hadn't done that for the wrestling competition. It would have all but assured their victory. But now was not the time to ponder it so he pushed the subject aside for the moment and spread a hasty warning down the line of humans.

"Stay away from those guys...even if it means we lose. They're all jacked-up on some kind of steroid high and will be even more deadly than normal."

Dex glared fearfully down the field at the enemy. He hated to give up, but a head to head clash with those monsters was not something he would openly choose. Only the Benoits licked their lips in anticipation.

When the chime rang, Draake, Brome, and Al burst forward eagerly while the humans fanned out to thin the odds. The Kreete though, took a strangely direct approach, dashing forward in a tightly formed V. Grayle was on the sidelines issuing orders to the players. He and the other substitute player of his team appeared to be normal size...which was still gargantuan by human standards...but they were visibly less "pumped up" than those Draake's team faced.

The Kreete team was much faster than normal too, but it didn't really matter. Draake wasn't about to race them to the piidge. He and his men simply trudged forward at a fast jog, shoulder to shoulder. Ron dropped to a walk to watch, as did his human fellows. He had a good idea what the Benoits were capable of, and wondered at the gall of the Kreete. Even though they may be as strong, their molecular density simply couldn't match the giant Benoits'.

The Kreete leader didn't scoop up the piidge, but instead, optioned to let the second man take it and fall back into the protection of the V. They looked like a menacing spearhead of gigantic muscle plowing forward, imposing and unstoppable. Then they met the mammoth Ultras.

Wickets hit the ground in an instant, and then the playing field became a battleground in a flash, with growling, cursing, and snarling reverberating across the grass. The giant spearhead had struck something it knew it couldn't penetrate, and so it broke and surrounded the obstruction.

"Oh shit!" Ron hissed as a diabolical gamut the Kreete could employ suddenly hit him. "In the wrestling competition the rules had specifically forbidden any lethal outcome...but here, the game is called Death Ball!"

As an icy chill tore through his body, Ron turned to his teammate thirty peors to his right.

"They're not here all maxed out just to win the tournament!" Ron yelled to Dex, the panic in his voice clear and unmistakable. "They juiced up so they could 'kill' the Benoits!"

### Chapter Thirty

### Let There be Blood!

Dex understood Ron's reasoning in an instant, as well as his anxiety, and suddenly he flushed red with anger, gripping his wicket so tightly his ebony knuckles turned white. If they took out even two of the Benoits, it was over!

"Let's go!" Ron shouted and broke into a sprint...the red haze of fury slipping neatly across his vision. His deep-seeded hatred of the Kreete made it easy to build his wrath to the maximum in the briefest of periods.

Draake and his fellows were indeed surrounded, but they'd managed to get back to back with each other, so they only had to worry about those in front of them. However, their defense strategy was only good for a quick brawl, not an extended battle. When none of the Kreete team did moved on with the piidge they knew were in trouble.

Draake hammered the lead Kreete, Warce, with all he had, square in the chest. It was a solid blow that should have broken everything beneath his knuckles, but incredibly the fellow took it and held his ground well. That astonishing feat clearly shocked the Benoi warrior until he noted the slight difference in the Destroyers' uniforms.

"Armor!" Draake growled to let his countrymen know what they faced.

The fabric that encased the Lords was triply thick and designed to spread the load of any strike across a wide area so as to keep injuries to a minimum. The Benoits, on the other hand, had no such protection! After all, this was supposed to be a match, not all out war.

Each contact of fist to flesh gave off a sharp report that could only be likened to a good-sized tree snapping, and the first ten rows of the audience jerked back in astonishment and horror.

At that point, the blows began trading in such rapidity that to the crowd it sounded like an entire forest was being felled by a pulverizing machine right before them.

Draake held his position steadfastly, his broad feet planted like anchors against the wailing barrage of the attack, but Al Pope received a blow to the head from his blindside that forced him off balance and caused him to fall against Brome. That fouled a left punch he was throwing and allowed a powerful incoming fist to contact his jaw with devastating results.

When his head dropped, two Kreete dove at him trying to crush him to the ground, and subsequently his right knee faltered, breaking their triangular defensive stance.

The Kreete who held the piidge, Histra, pushed his way in at that point and attacked with his wicket. Now their strategy was clear. Since he was the only one who could use it as a weapon, he'd held onto the piidge just for that single reason.

Two Kreete held Al off balance with his head exposed for the kill strike, and he saw it coming an instant early, knowing full well he'd been set up. He watched the butt end of that wicket racing at his skull and merely gritted his teeth with a throaty growl. There was nowhere to escape to.

"You filthy, cheating scum!" he thought.

But then...somehow...the blow fell wide, missing his head completely as Histra tumbled roughly over him and knocked his captors away in the process.

The human pair on Draake's team had dashed forward with all haste, forgetting the peril they were facing in a desperate attempt to aid the Benoits...the only real hope their team had for winning the overall competition.

As Ron closed on the group surrounding the giants, one of the closer Kreete players caught his approach and wheeled about to face him, his fanged mouth issuing out a battle roar in the process. Ron saw him brace himself with hands outspread, ready to crush this tiny human who dared defy a "Lord". But what he didn't see was the ebony-skinned teammate of Ron's, the one who was faster than he was, and the one who came at him from the other side.

Dex slammed into the Master Killer before Grayle's warning could reach him from the sidelines, and the two of them exited Ron's charging path in a flash of time. Ron carried forward without slowing in the least and launched himself through the air just as Histra drew his mighty arms over his head for the kill strike on Al. And even though Ron was only two-thirds Histra's weight, his speed-fueled momentum made him a formidable assailant.

Ron lead the way with his wicket whipping forward to catch Histra behind the right ear, and his knees crashed into the Kreete's upper back like a living sledgehammer. They both slammed to the ground three peors away, Histra badly dazed and wondering what had happened, and Ron more focused than ever.

The collision knocked most of the wind out of Ron, but he refused to relent on his attack. He'd done his job...Al was free...but the beast inside him detested the thought of allowing his enemy time to recover. Ron had done battle with some of the best warriors the Kreete could create, so even though Histra was suped up, fear and caution were not on Ron's mind. If that dragen flarge dung wanted to get away, he'd have to earn it!

Al rolled to the side quickly and popped to his feet, checking for other attackers. For a fleeting moment he couldn't repress a stare that locked onto his former threat, but that vision held his attention longer than he would normally have simply by the audacity it evoked.

A relatively miniscule human stood atop Histra's eight-foot frame, pummeling him with his wicket like a madman. The hail of blows raining down upon him kept the much larger Kreete player from regaining his feet too. And with strikes aimed at each of his joints with bone-shattering power and unfathomable precision, he remained down, jerking, screaming, and writhing in unrelenting anguish. Furthermore, if it hadn't been for the impressive armor he wore, he'd have been locked in a med-station for a week.

"We chose that one well," Al thought quickly, watching Ron fight for a moment.

But there was no time for admiration. Al dove forward and grabbed one of his former tormentors and began dishing out his own version of payback. His ultra-heavy-worlder fists drove now with extreme force from an adrenaline rush like he'd never felt before. He snapped the Kreete's left forearm with the first blow, his right elbow with the second, his jaw with the third, and then the massive, gray-skinned creature lay still following a straight punch to his left eye socket that bounced his skull violently against the turf.

Al then rolled left sharply because the second of his original attackers was back for blood, charging with a wild roar issuing forth. Al blocked the incoming fist and grabbed his arm, taking the Kreete down with him in a lightning-quick jujitsu-like move that ended with the Kreete's neck between Al's thick legs. Al twisted that arm violently until it was leveraged over the Kreete's head at an extreme angle. A moment later found the air filled with the horrendous sound of a Kreete soldier in absolute agony as his immense shoulder was literally ripped clear of its socket.

Of the two Kreete who had attacked Draake at the onset, one now lay broken on the ground, his left knee crushed and coughing up blood, while the other, Borsh, tried to take advantage of the eight broken ribs Draake had received during the brawl. Draake clearly guarded that tender area and so Borsh attempted to add to the tally by pounding Draake's deeply bruised arms in an attempt to get through. Those insanely powerful punches sent visible twinges up to the giant's brain and pushed him backward, and for a moment Borsh thought he was getting the upper hand.

Draake of course knew he had to protect his mid-section if he were to continue the fight, so he couldn't really open himself up to retaliate, and it worried him. Instead, he retreated and retreated, across the field until he was only a step from the boundary line.

On the very next punch Borsh threw, Draake let the shot through and grabbed his arm, taking the mind-numbing pain in stride to get a grip on his assailant. Then he simply stepped out of bounds dragging the suddenly frantically struggling Borsh with him.

The current of energy swept through Draake with shocking force, but he didn't slow...at least until the Kreete was in the direct path of the charge. At that point, Draake dropped suddenly and used his wrestling moves to sweep the Kreete's feet out from under him. When Borsh slammed solidly to the ground, Draake grasped his other arm and held him in the stream of energy while the Kreete crumpled into a ball in a twitching, grunting display of pain.

"You still want to play this game?" Draake growled at the squirming warrior, his knee pinning Borsh to the turf.

After a few moments, Draake released him and strode back through the barrier, leaving the helpless warrior struggling to get clear without control of his limbs or his vision, and his mind nearly paralyzed from the device.

Brome had his assailant down too while the other...Plotann...was distracted by Ron, who was doing extremely well staying just clear of the fellow's reach while still able to strike him some irritating blows. The Kreete's face was torn and bloody from those lightning-quick feet of Ron's.

It was Dex who Draake rushed back in to help. He was in bad shape. The Kreete he'd taken down to save Ron had broken his arm and hip, and knocked him unconscious. His limp figure was dangling twelve feet in the air as the Kreete player, Mirdesh, was about to toss him to the crowd, but Draake was on him in two herculean steps. His right fist drove home dead center of the seven-foot-ten-inch-tall Kreete's spine, and the results were phenomenal.

Draake felt the vertebrae give and buckle under his knuckles, but they didn't separate completely because of his armor and the current state of super-enhancement. That being so, Mirdesh wasn't killed or paralyzed, but his grip on Dex evaporated immediately and they went to the ground in a heap, Dex collapsing on top.

Draake hurriedly scooped Dex up and carried him to a safe distance before turning back to the melee`. When he did, he saw Ron's body flying through the air more than ten paces before he hit hard and tumbled to a stop.

Ron was on his hands and knees instantly, shaking his raven coif to clear the cobwebs from his mind and bracing himself for the next round. He was bloodied in several areas and dark red blotches literally covered his body where his uniform had been savagely ripped off him. Those were the precursors to deep, painful bruises, but his defiance shown through in the way his lips curled back from his white teeth and his chest issued its baritone, rumbling growl. When he tried to stand though, he pulled up sharply, his knee giving signs of some serious internal injury.

Plotann smiled a deadly Kreete smile.

The seventh level Master Killer moved rigidly as well, showing he too had sustained at least some damage during the brawl, but he fought through the pain and broke into a fast pursuit of Ron. However, with an impressively quick dive, Brome's hand whipped out and grabbed Plotann's ankle, felling him like a tree before hauling him into closer quarters. Brome's huge, misshapen eyes fairly glistened with delight as he reeled the Kreete in. Plotann's eyes, on the other hand, had a rather opposite look to them.

"You boys want to fight, huh?" Brome growled.

"DONG!" rang a deafening chime calling the first round to conclusion.

Everyone on the field stopped out of utter surprise, frozen where they stood, or crouched, or lay. Then, one by one, their questioning eyes scanned the scoreboard.

Down at the end of the field stood a Kreete player with an empty wicket in his hand, and above him the highest goal flashed. Ten points to the Kreete team.

For several litas, the halt in action was disorienting to all those involved while they breathed in great gulps of air and took stock of their surroundings.

Fifty peors away, a beautiful blonde woman, fell back into her seat with her heart racing. Her finger finally moved away from the panic button alert she'd set up with the _Darlile_ , but it trembled incessantly, partly from the rush of adrenaline pounding through her body, and partly from having seen enough of the madness of the Games. She panted heavily and drank some water as everyone regrouped.

Draake swept the field and saw where Dex was lying dazed on the ground, a med-naut sweeping in quickly. He then continued around and saw what he really wanted to see. The "enhanced" Kreete players were decimated. Three of the five were totally incapacitated from further play, and one of the other two limped badly and was unable to raise one arm. The only player appearing unscathed was the fellow under the goal.

The two teams then cleared the field of their wounded and regrouped for round two. Draake was out, his chest too damaged to let him take a breath, but Al and Brome stayed in there to protect the humans. They had little hope of winning at that point because Brome's ankle was damaged and he couldn't run, but nonetheless, they needed to man the field until the final scoring was done. Otherwise, their team would lose all there points for the match.

Ron took over as team leader and organized them into a shield of their own goal area. That would force the Kreete to come to them and keep any unnecessary running to a minimum, hopefully sparing Brome further aggravation.

It was a dangerous call because it also kept the Kreete team in close quarters with his human teammates, and he really didn't want another all-out fight to ensue. What he guessed correctly though was that they didn't either. Grayle realized his good fortune that none of his teammates had died, but also couldn't afford to let more of his men get within reach of the angry Benoits. There were still eighteen more points to go and so their victory wasn't exactly "in the bag" at that juncture.

The bout turned into something more akin to merely a rough version of the sport after that, and the game play quickened considerably.

A few borts later, following a terrific body slam from Al, Bart got the piidge from a downed Kreete player and raced across the field.

Grayle overtook him but not before he could sling the ball to Fraidze for the score. It was only two points, but they had control of the piidge, and so with the speed and agility of the unhurt players...Fraidze and Bart...the Outcasts held it until they were two points up.

That got Grayle nervous enough to send a surge of his men at the Benoits in a three man blocking move that let him and Warce take aim at the humans. The sudden change in strategy took Bart by surprise and he made an errant pass to Ron...one that fell short.

The Destroyers then broke ahead for a fourteen point run that ended when Brome tossed Fraidze high into the air to intercept a goal shot.

Ron instantly broke into a limping sprint for the other end. He headed down the right side of the field and caught a terrific throw from his teammate at midway...but Grayle was already angling to cut him off in an attempt to regain the piidge.

Ron couldn't outrun him while carrying the piidge, especially since Grayle's strides were almost twice as long as his, so he opted for plan B. He accelerated up to full speed and then suddenly planted his left foot and whipped the wicket around with all his considerable strength.

Fifty peors away, the brightly glowing ring was around a goal off to the left...far and away from where the piidge was headed, and everyone in the audience was convinced he'd made a bad throw following a desperate, foolish play. But when the trajectory of the piidge failed to arch and fall as they had all expected, due to the tremendous power of the throw, they suddenly leapt to their feet in a thunderous wave of skyrocketing excitement.

"Creator above!" Cache chirped...her eyes already having calculated its flight path.

The piidge sizzled through the air, its ominous spines whistling as it went, until it slammed into the wall with a deep, resonating sound, and for a moment, no one knew what to think. Then the highest goal began to flash.

Could it be? No one had ever scored a ten point goal from almost half field! It was impossible!

Grayle just stood there staring for several litas, his face as blank and gray and stoic as a block of stone. Then he turned to Ron and nodded his head slightly. His hideous feature still held little, if any, emotion, but he seemed to be trying to convey his esteem at the fantastic throw. That shocked Ron more deeply than the crowd was amazed at the goal...and they were totally amazed!

Had a Kreete warrior just openly shown him respect? It seemed beyond reason.

Ron nodded his acceptance of the honor and returned to his teammates who were overwhelmed with awe at the play.

"By the grace of the Guardian!" Fraidze said as he clasped Ron's hand and slammed shoulders with him. "Never before has there been such a shot!"

Al and Brome both smiled the most human grin they could manage and congratulated Ron...but then it was back to business. The match was close now, but far from over, and as the two teams of mostly injured players faced off, both were determined to come out on top.

With their passing game much improved, Ron and his fellows moved the piidge downfield in short order, but a slight misjudgment on Fraidze's part brought him too close to his Kreete shadow and the boundary. Brome fired a successful scoring shot, but a brutal body-check from his opponent put Fraidze into the boundary zone, and out of the match. He was carried to his team on a stretcher and twitched uncontrollably for the following billot.

Ron felt the lingering effects of the long match with every step, and he could see it in Bart's face as well. That, coupled with the limping Benoi, Brome, made up the bulk of their squad. Al was the only one still in good shape, though Ron wondered at how much he was hiding. Even after that fracas in the first round the game had been quite physical.

The chime rang out and they moved ahead. Ron could at least make out the sluggishness of the Kreete team too, so he remained hopeful. It was twenty-six to twenty-six and the entire crowd was standing at their seats. Eighty percent of them were fervently chanting for the human team to prevail, easily drowning out the deep growling and howling from the Kreete's section.

The next goal would decide the match, so no one was in a hurry. Ron tossed the piidge to Al, and he to Brome, and then to Bart who sent it back again. The Kreete met them at mid-field to press their defense, and with one extra player, they doubled up on the man with the piidge.

The passing got more hurried, and more powerful...the spiked menace grazing the opponents as it streaked by, only to be snagged in the wicket of a teammate. The Kreete though were desperate not to fail, and fairly flew at the handler of the piidge time and again, forcing more passing with less and less room for error. It took three times as long to cross mid-field as it had just two rounds before.

And once they were finally at the far end...the scoring wall for Draake's team...the play grew rough and menacing once more. The Kreete kept the extra man parked under the lit goal every moment, and when it moved, he dashed to cover it. Ron felt the pressure building toward another free-for-all battle again when Warce guessed the play correctly and charged Bart who was receiving the latest pass.

Bart however, noticed the goal closest to him light up out of the corner of his eye and saw the Kreete defender was a full three steps away from it. His heart leaped nearly out of his chest at the lucky timing. With Warce barreling down at him, he spun and flicked the piidge at that glowing target as quickly as he could. His wicket slammed resoundingly against the wooden shaft of his opponent's blocking thrust, the sharp clatter of it echoing across the grassy field clearly, but it was too late...the sphere was in the air. His expression was filled with hope and elation even when the massive creature body-blocked him violently and he flew fifteen feet to land hard...dazed, bruised, and spitting out a mouthful of grass.

It was a two point goal that would win the game, and he would be the hero. He would be the man who finally beat the Kreete in one of their own savage games! But...as the deadly, prickly metal ball neared the all-important goal, something changed. And when the long, heinous steel spines finally sunk into the wooden surface, every head was locked on it...but not a sound came from the enormous crowd.

A lita clicked by and still nothing changed. Two more passed while everyone stared with open mouths. No one breathed. The silence was almost oppressive.

Then reality of the outcome struck home, and the Kreete part of the stadium exploded with applause. Every other faction remained motionless...frozen in place.

Even with the bedlam of his countrymen roaring in the background, Grayle stood out on the field of play like he was made of granite. He was visibly shocked...too surprised to move. The goal was flashing brightly...but it wasn't red. It was green. The score went to his team. They had won!

Finally the thunderous sound from the stands broke through his stupor and his heart jumped. He spun about, rose to his full height, and then raised his arms in the air to acknowledge the triumph. He even started to let out his usual bellowing roar of success...but then...as if something inside suddenly chilled him to the core...he hesitated. Down in his gut he was not at all satisfied. It wasn't the clean, dominating victory he'd wanted. In fact, looking into the weary, leaden eyes of the broken and wounded members of his team gave him nearly opposite feelings of what he wanted to express. For some reason he didn't quite fully grasp, he could dredge up almost no pride at all. Instead, he felt disappointed and unworthy.

He stood there on the field representing the supreme race who dominated the galaxy, yet they had hardly proven their superiority over a lesser foe. His arms slowly slid down to his sides as he strolled quietly back to his teammates with a pronounced limp.

A dozen steps away, Ron felt nearly heartbroken, as did the rest of the team. They had come so close! And not only that, but he'd been watching the board closely. The goal Bart had tried for should have stayed red for another lita and a half. There was no way to avoid his conclusion that something underhanded had just occurred. After a moment longer though, he mentally scolded himself for being gullible enough to have ever believed in fairness when it came to the Kreete.

He walked stiffly back to his group with drooping shoulders and a miserable disposition. His body throbbed from a hundred places and all he wanted was to leave that place.

When they were all together again however (at least those who weren't in the med-station), something remarkable happened. In a complete reversal of roles, it was Draake Tarbold who turned it around for them.

"Well done, men!" Draake rumbled in his gravelly, bellowing voice...a grin stretched across his wide face making him even more frightening than normal. "We have shown them what we are made of! This truly could not have gone better!"

"Oh yeah?" Bart grumbled, his face twisted with disgust. "Didn't you notice, Big-man...'they' won?"

Draake stared at him like he'd just turned bright blue. "Did you ever really think they would not?"

"What?" Bart asked, stunned at the question. "Yeah! Didn't you?"

"No, of course not. I thought they would have ground us up in record time, scoring all twenty-eight points without us once getting a chance...and if they hadn't been stupid enough to start out with a fight, they probably would have."

"I don't get it," Ron said, shaking his head. He too was befuddled.

"Don't you see? They gambled heavily on this match. They used up their members in a single attempt at crushing us and eliminating the only competition they had. But it didn't work! If they had simply played the match with their enhanced players, they would have destroyed us. As cranked up as they were, they could have scored three ten point goals in the first few borts. With only three Benoits to try and stop them, it would have been easy. But when they decided to attack us...to remove us from further competition, no doubt...they made a critical error. Losing more than half of their best players cost them a tremendous advantage.

"And now, we are still extremely tight with them on the overall score. Instead of pulling away so far we had no chance, they gave us a gift! We remain well within reach of their lead...and I guarantee you their superiors are afraid of that!"

Ron thought for a few moments...and then had to smile at Draake's declaration. It did seem true.

So it was with lighter hearts that the battered team made their way slowly back to the ship. Suddenly they looked forward to the next event, although they all sincerely hoped for a prolonged flight so they could recuperate.

Aboard the _Confarii_ , the newest commander, Maice Lorr was frantically jubilant! He congratulated his staff on their fantastic timing, even throwing out a promotion to the fellow who'd so flawlessly changed that last goal just in the nick of time.

Even with the poor overall showing of their team, the Kreete had walked away victorious. He was safe. Now it was time to celebrate.

That match would be broadcast a hundred more times before the next phase of the Games could begin, and so he issued one last order before taking his leave.

"Make sure that no one allows any uncut video of the last bort of that game to leave this station...understood?"

Behind him, standing in her alcove ready to serve her new master, Arsisi quivered with anger, disgust, and outrage. She knew exactly what they'd done to win, and now she had to stand by and allow them to cover it all up!

The Outcasts had been cheated and she wanted to scream it out to the entire audience. When her master left his post to go begin the festivities, she wept. All those billions of viewers who so desperately needed some tiny ray of hope had been robbed of it. That act solidified her most recent epiphany...that the Lords were vile, selfish, pompous, egotistical tyrants with no regard for the honor they boasted so loudly about.

She stared across the room at all the high-tech equipment right in front of her. But what could she do? She was only a slave.

### Chapter Thirty-one

### Aquaria

The Outcasts' wish for recovery time was granted, and so after a weeklong voyage, the Games brought them to a world unlike anything they'd ever heard of. The planet was larger than Caron but there was only a single landmass upon it about the size of Africa. The rest was just an expansive globe of water.

On Aquaria, because of the location of the competition, the teams left their transports behind at the landing sight and were flown across the continent to the highly congested venue on native-built shuttles. That site ended up being at a huge seaport at the edge of one of the world's great cities.

The cool, salty air was fresh and invigorating, blowing in from the water that ran to the horizon under a bright, deeply rose-colored sky.

Many of the competitors had grown accustomed to the oddities of the new worlds with little fanfare, but Ron marveled at the beauty of each one and again wished he could explore all of them in greater detail.

Birds dipped and darted about as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening on that particular morning. They seemed completely unaffected by the hundreds of thousands of anxious spectators that had crowded in and around the normally bustling, yet peaceful port.

The scene unfolding there on that beautiful day was an odd one to say the least. Even though the world was completely modern, sharing trade and open commerce with other worlds, the watercrafts that lay moored at the dock were not...at least not in their design. They were made with the most up-to-date materials and utilized the finest finishes on their surfaces, yet they were replications of boats from an ancient, bygone era.

The open-air crafts were nearly twenty peors long, had a single sail in the center, and six sets of oars that were presently stored along the inner hull. They each had provisions lashed to the deck in the bow and stern sections of the boat, and a water hold near the center.

The teammates of the various factions looked around at each other with questioning eyes and much whispering, waiting for the event to unfold. And then it began.

"Good morning to you all!" called a rather plump man who stood on a tall platform that had been constructed for the event. "Welcome to Aquaria! This is the Leona Seaport, serving the capital city of Mariana, and we are delighted and honored to be hosting the fourth stage of the ninety-second edition of the Triad Games!"

The crowd erupted in a deafening cheer that lasted for five straight borts, not relenting until the host had waved his hands asking for quiet for quite a while.

"My name is Xerrade Yurbane, and I will be giving you your instructions for the event."

Ron took a moment to scan the vast sea of bodies that extended from the shoreline to several hoz up into the surrounding hills, and wondered just what they thought of the prospects of the games. Were they forced to attend? If they were there of their own accord, was it purely curiosity with not a whim of dread for the contestants? Were they so far separated from the Games that they simply didn't care about the loss of life already mounting from the competition?

He quickly decided it was impossible to know the minds of strangers though, and dismissed the thought altogether a moment later so that he could concentrate.

"Each team has been assigned a boat of identical dimensions, stocked with food and water to meet the needs of their particular species for the next seven days.

"Each team is challenged with sailing their vessel from here, around the southern end of our continent, and up the eastern side to the city of Vassarr. It is a trip of one thousand hoz and will require intense physical and mental fitness to endure. Too, there will be some serious dangers to overcome since the seas at the apex of the route are the most treacherous on the planet.

"Now that sounds rather ominous, I know, but the course has been routinely survived by our peoples who traveled in similar crafts as far back as two thousand generations, so it is far from impossible."

Ron couldn't help but think of the Vikings of Earth and their extraordinary abilities to sail similar craft through the North Atlantic in the early days of exploration. He also knew that they were trained from a very young age to read the tides, the skies, and the waves to allow them at least a modicum of safety. He casually glanced at his teammates for signs that any of them had such experience, and luckily, he was not disappointed.

Bart's eyes were shining as he gazed steadily at the boat and then at the surrounding harbor. The surface of the water was calm and tranquil just then with gentle swells barely two feet high. He caught Ron's inquisitive stare and grinned at him, cracking his knuckles expectantly.

Ron allowed a slow sigh of relief to escape him as he returned his attention to the moderator.

"We have maps of the route, of the shoreline, and of the adjacent oceans for two hundred hoz out into the open water, stored aboard each ship as well. Also, there is one spare sail and a thousand peors of line.

"Are there any questions?"

A hundred hands shot up instantly.

"What about guidance devices to keep us on course?" asked one of the Lormai. They were a race of nomads who roamed the vast grassland plains of their homeworld, Lormus. They undoubtedly had no idea how to traverse an ocean.

"No such help has been provided," claimed Xerrade. "You will have to navigate by sight of land, sun, or stars. Details of each are included with the maps. However, if any team becomes lost, or wishes to terminate the event, there will be a hoverbot assigned to each boat that can be activated from the 'steersman' position. Rescue will be prompt, but will come with its own penalties."

The group all felt fairly sure what those would be, so a low grumble drifted through the men.

"What about weather forecasts?" asked a Niman. He seemed unmoved by the challenge, almost at ease. His team was unquestionably very experienced in the water.

"What you see is all you have!"

The various members of a large number of teams began angrily discussing the hopelessness of the challenge, their tempers rising quickly.

"This is suicide!" was uttered numerous times. Many of the teams professed that they had no one with sailing experience.

"If any of you wish to withdraw from the competition, there is a beacon you may initiate in the bow of your ship. But, if you use it, you are out of the Games. Also, you forfeit your freedom and any leniency of your world.

"In the words of many who have come before you; 'It is far better to try and fail, even if it costs you your lives, than to do nothing'. At least you will have your honor and your families can mourn you in peace!"

It sounded like a heartless speech to anyone not under the rule of the Empire, but it was not taken as a callous statement. It was merely the truth.

After another dozen mostly unanswered questions about the route, the dangers, and the time limit, the squads began making their way to the docks where they found their teams' banners flying above the appropriate vessel. Bart pointed out their team's location more than a half hoz away and so they headed off.

The boat was just as Xerrade had described it with one exception; the oars. The Outcasts' craft had two completely different sets. One was for the humans, and one was obviously built to accommodate the Benoits. The latter oars were massive, another ten feet longer, and had blades that were big enough to be doors. Too, they were spaced much farther apart.

Ron raised his eyes at those huge wooden tools, but Draake merely set about getting accustomed to the boat, apparently not completely unfamiliar with this task. Ron worried momentarily about a mishap in the ocean claiming his gigantic teammates' lives since they would sink like stones, but that concern was not necessary. When they got dressed that morning, they found their suits had been fitted with air pockets that inflated automatically when immersed in water. Apparently, Jazz was somewhat familiar with what they would face in this trial.

At the very center of the ship was a narrow walkway to allow the crew to move from forward to aft as they pleased. And even though there were only six sets of oars for the competition, on either side were rowing positions that could accommodate twenty men (the normal size of a crew).

Brome climbed aboard and immediately went to three different positions where he secured a large, thick wooden board across the aisle at those places. Fraidze didn't know what he was doing, but he'd learned not to interfere with the Benoits unless absolutely necessary, so he went forward to the bow to have a look around.

The Ultras took up a good deal of the usable space in the sloop, and their incredible weight was clear when the boat settled deeply into the water. Bart eyed that immediately and his expression grew grim.

"We'll be at a huge disadvantage," he said to Ron discreetly, indicating their profile on the water. "We're pushing a lot of extra water that the others won't have to."

"It cannot be helped," was all Draake replied as he took a seat in the center of the boat and began sliding the giant oars into position. His ears were very sharp. Brome and Al did likewise at the other two points Brome had prepared.

"Draake," Bart ventured, "we have a good wind to use the sail right from the dock. You won't need to use the oars right away."

"Good," Draake replied. "Make it ready." He did not, however, move from his seat.

Ron then expressed a question of the huge creature.

"You are going to row out of port? There are only three of you. Will that even help in a boat this big?" His gaze was still scanning the length of the seventy-foot-long craft.

"Watch and learn, Itsu," Draake growled back. His misshapen eyes looked over Dex's shoulder at the countdown timer that hung in the sky for all to see. It was closing in on zero.

"You might want to sit down," he added in an uncharacteristically humorous tone.

Ron was watching it too, so he grabbed Dex by the upper arm and hauled him to the seat beside him...in front of the aft facing Benoits. Fraidze sat perched beside the only rope still securing the ship. He was holding a small hatchet.

Bart was just behind them on the rudder. The sail was full and straining against the mast, causing the mooring line to draw tight where it was anchored to the dock. Fraidze's hand went up as the indicator reached one, and when the percussion grenade erupted, the hatchet sunk through that rope neatly, setting the boat free. At the same instant, the Benoits surged their enormous bodies in perfect unison and the bow of the little ship literally leaped from the water.

Ron's eyes bulged at the sight of the mighty warriors' strength as each of the six oars bent dramatically at their apexes and sent huge mounds of water hurtling toward the nearest opponents' boats. Those waves were so large that they actually caused the closest crews to tangle their own oars as they scrambled against the pitching of their crafts and cursed the giant Ultras.

Every other team had launched in a similar fashion, with six oarsmen manning the chore, but the Outcasts sprang ahead as if they were sprinters among joggers. Dex even had to grab a better hold as his feet lifted into the air and he nearly fell over backward.

The harbor was located in a huge bay which was sheltered by a fantastic, manmade barrier located several hoz away. The only exit out into the open ocean was through a rather narrow gap in that rocky obstruction, but no crew had much of an advantage due to the horseshoe shape of the protected water.

Ron grinned like a young boy as their lead grew rapidly, and he jumped to his feet when he caught sight of the Kreete's boat. They were off to the starboard side about a hoz away and they had six of their men on the oars and one at the rear acting as steersman and coxswain. They were well ahead of the other boats and appeared to be moving incredibly fast.

Ron stared at them with malicious intent as he held on to the sail's boom to keep from being tossed to the deck by the surging motions of the oarsmen.

Bart glanced over several times to see what held Ron's interest so keenly, and smiled.

"It is an illusion," he said calmly, riding the rhythm of the strokes with composed, practiced experience.

Ron looked back at him curiously. "What is?"

"They seem to be keeping pace with us, right?"

Ron looked at the other vessel again and nodded angrily.

Bart laughed. "They're striking five beats to our three...a very aggressive pace...yet they fall further behind on every stroke. It's funny actually...to see the mighty Lords humbled so abjectly."

Ron continued to look but couldn't see it. There were no physical markers to judge the distance. The water was extremely deceptive.

Bart merely smiled more, drinking in the exhilaration of the wind, the spray of the salty sea, and the race. "You'll see when we hit the breakers," he said lightly.

The team felt their hearts hammering away in their chests as the gap in the barrier neared, and when they struck the first open-water swells a few borts later, it became clear to all in their ship...and everyone watching...exactly what position they held. They were safely out of range of any other craft.

Ron counted after that as they swung around to point south, their lunging pace never slowing. It was a little over five borts before the Kreete bow pitched up with their first heavy wave. They all felt like cheering.

The race was barely half a billot old!

After that, the Outcasts settled down and began to assign jobs. Ron worked the sail at Bart's instruction until they had it tied off at the perfect point to catch the wind at its most efficient angle. The wind was stronger out on the open water and that helped raise their spirits, but Bart knew that was merely a temporary thing. With the coming night, the winds would lessen and the lighter crews would have the advantage.

He eyed the tiny dots behind them, completely aware that they were no more than six hoz away (the maximum distance one could see from his position). He didn't want to let the others know his concerns just yet though. It would be soon enough that they would, and there was nothing anyone could do about it anyway.

The Benoits stopped their rowing a billot later, when the horizon was clear of any followers, and the team enjoyed a meal and discussed a schedule that would keep someone on the rudder round the clock with a spotter at the bow.

The open-air craft had plenty of room for the small group, even with the size of the Ultras, so it was actually a welcome change to the grueling schedule they'd seen thus far in the competition.

The smell of the salty water reminded Ron of his days out on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and he smiled at the brief memories that dredged up while he lay there looking up at the clouds passing overhead.

It all seemed a little too easy as they lounged about the boat during that first morning, but when the sun passed its zenith, the team was reminded that they were yet in the Triad Games.

"Oh no!" moaned Dex, the current lookout in the forward section. Bart saw it too and immediately began barking orders.

"Lash yourselves to something! Secure everything!" He then double-checked his own safety cord. It was a heavy-duty braided rope the size of his thumb and it was tied off to his personal harness and to the ship.

There were dozens of similar personnel anchors around the outer edge of the hull and another ten up the center. Each was only five or six feet long and tightly secured to the boat in such a way that they could be grabbed and deployed in an instant. Too, their positions were such that someone could move about the boat by swapping tethers as they went. It was obvious that they were much needed devices in bad weather.

Everyone braced themselves for the hit, but even then Dex and Ron were slapped to the deck as a wave twenty feet high came crashing over the sides. The boat was flooded instantly but was built for such conditions with drain holes made into the sides at the level of the deck and an extra wide one at the stern to evacuate the center aisle. As the bow pitched up with the following wave, the sea water shot out the back as if a huge pump had suddenly been turned on.

From that moment on they began their fight against the elements, and any thoughts of lounging were left decidedly in the past. It quickly became a tremendous struggle even to have a hasty bite of their rations or a simple drink of salt-free water.

After two straight days of battering waves, fast moving lightning-filled storms, and searing sun, they were all beaten, bloody, and exhausted.

The boat at least was like their mighty Benoi captain...unbreakable...and even with the relentless pounding of the violent ocean, the vessel seemed oblivious and showed no sign of trouble. Ron was very impressed.

The biggest downside to their predicament was that when Bart was too tired to handle the rudder and command the set of the sail, they made poor progress. Even Ron, who caught on to what he was instructed very quickly, couldn't match the bigger man's deft ability to guide the craft through such horrendous conditions. Because of that fact, they knew they'd been passed by at least six other boats by dawn on the fourth day. The first of those teams had been the Kreete who no doubt had been thoroughly schooled to excel with that particular ship.

They were a little more than halfway through the race by then and headed for an island that jutted out of the sea two thousand peors into the dark-pink sky. The spire of that island's central peak pierced the center of a fluffy white cloud and acted as a pylon and guide to the contestants. It was known as the Devil's Spire. They would swing due east beyond that point and make a long, sweeping arc clear of the southernmost string of islands laid out in a long archipelago before finally reaching the mainland once again, and the finish. It was then that Draake roused his disheartened crew.

"Bart," he roared. "Take us northeast!"

The rough seas had kept them all drenched to the bone and so Bart shook his waterlogged head to clear his thoughts and his eyes, staring at the giant as if he'd grown an extra head.

"But, Draake, that is not the route marked out on our charts. That will take us where no sane crew would go...through the Mangler!"

"DO AS I SAY!" he shouted so loud that even the ship seemed to quiver.

Bart had the rudder pitched around in a flash, turning the boat more than ninety degrees from the planned route. When they were reoriented, the sail fell slack and the boom swung around violently as Bart prepared to try and tack against wind. He felt Draake had made a critical error in judgment that would decimate their effort, but he was afraid to say anything right away.

A few borts later he felt the boat react to the new heading.

"You know we are now fighting a fifteen-hoz-per-billot current trying to send us back the way we came, right?" he asked loud enough so all would hear and understand what was happening. "The map was clear about that point."

Fraidze heard that exchange and quickly dove for the waterproof map they'd been given.

Draake didn't even reply as he stood on his massive trunk-like feet and stared ahead. Half a billot later they all noticed the waves drop substantially. Ron's senses perked up and he immediately began probing the calmer, darker water. Something was definitely different.

"What happened," Dex asked as the Benoits suddenly unlashed themselves and hurried to the center of the ship.

"The current is so strong that it keeps the waves checked," Bart informed him. "They cannot build to the towering heights we've been fighting."

"Well, that's got to be good, right?"

"Yeah, it is, but it's also flowing the wrong way! It cut our forward speed by two thirds," Bart clarified.

"And the map says this lane gets the heaviest rain on the planet!" Fraidze reported.

"That's why the smell changed!" Ron interjected. "It's all the fresh water dumping into the sea! It will make the ship ride even lower in the water!"

"There are five different warnings about this place," Fraidze added, his voice becoming strained. He was reading right off the map. "Fogbanks, unending storms, shallow water surrounded by jagged rocks. It sounds like suicide!"

"This entire competition is suicide!" Al countered angrily, in no mood to listen to the fears of these little men further. "We can only die once. To lose is a worse fate. To end up as slaves under the Kreete's control will mean to wish for death a thousand times."

Draake, Brome, and Al were once more at their positions as oarsmen, readying themselves.

"Drop the sail," Draake ordered. "It will only interfere with our navigation."

Ron and Dex had it down in moments, stowing it tightly to the long boom.

"This passage will save us three hundred hoz of open water," Draake announced gruffly. "Pull!" he then barked, setting his fellows into motion and sending the ship rocketing along like when they'd first started.

"Yeah...that's right," Bart admitted. "But it's also a hundred hoz to the other side! There will be no break...no respite at all. We won't be able to use the sail through any of it either because the lane is so narrow at some points that we can't tack against it. Even your oars will barely clear!"

"Then you had better not miss the center!" Draake growled menacingly.

"Draake," Dex added, "it's a good two days until we clear this channel, even at the speed you're making now while you're fresh! We can't...that is, even you can't row that far, that hard."

As a reply, Draake Tarbold merely snorted.

Ron watched the giants pull on their massive oars for a few borts and began to wonder about that. They looked as if it were nothing to them.

Suddenly he grinned wide at the sheer audacity of it all. Then he slapped Fraidze on the shoulder and moved to the aft-most rowing station...well clear of the Benoits.

"Come on," Ron encouraged him, sliding out one set of oars designed for humans. "At least the work will keep us warm!"

Three days later:

Grayle Neese, the Kreete team leader, stood tall at the tiller of his team's boat as they rounded the final outcropping of rock that marked the protected waters of the Bay of Vassar. They were clipping along swiftly because of the smooth strokes of six mighty Kreete warriors pulling in perfect harmony. It was a sight to behold. He could feel the glory of his triumph building with the power of every beat of the oars as they streaked across the water. They were six billots ahead of the next boat and that clearly put any contention for the lead well out of reach.

He could almost hear the cheers of his fellows as; once again, they crushed any and all competitors in the quintessential spectacle of their dominating prowess...the Triad Games. Their supremacy would once more clarify their position across the galaxy as Lords and Masters of all lessor creatures. He was supremely jubilant to be the commander of such a fine squad of Kreete soldiers...the epitome of their race.

Grayle's glorious daydreams ended then and there however, as his boat drew to within two hoz of the finish.

He began straining his eyes to see their adoring fans...those of his own people roaring with applause for him and his champion crew...but he could make out nothing of the kind. He knew they were still too far away to hear, especially out on the water, but he should have been able to see the standing ovation of some ten thousand of his countrymen.

At one hoz out, his silver eyes gave him nothing but confusion when he could find no one sitting in the section cordoned off for his people. It was completely empty!

The shock of that kept him thoroughly bewildered until he finally took a look at the dock beside the huge banner proclaiming the end of the competition. He hadn't even fathomed glancing there before. After all, what was the point? Every other boat was far behind them, soundly in their wake. In fact, he hadn't seen another sail in the last four days, yet there sat the reason his cheering section was devoid of spectators. As clear as the marvelous rosy sky above, was a boat tied off securely to the long wharf. It was completely empty...as if it had been sitting there for some time.

As he stared at the vessel in utter disbelief, he noted the craft listed heavily to the port side. There were deep gashes in the wooden hull where it had grazed heavily against some sharp outcropping of stones and the mast was just a short nub, snapped off barely a peor above the deck. His inspection further found the upper part of that mast had been lashed to one of the huge oars as a splint. Of course he had no way of knowing that it was Brome who'd performed that desperate task, or that he'd done it in the midst of a tremendous squall of rain so dense he had to do most of the work by feel alone.

The crowd of onlookers sat almost completely silent, but he could see by then that they were not silent from having their hopes dashed once again by the dominance of the Triad. They talked softly to one another and pointed at the incoming ship...and he could clearly see smiles and suppressed laughter on their faces.

Grayle's confusion swiftly turned to open rage, and he let out a loud growl when the light breeze snapped the banner of the listing boat out taught and he saw its insignia.

His crew immediately stopped their efforts and their heads spun about to see what had distressed their leader at a time when he should have been beaming with elation. Their heaving chests clutched tightly as they followed his gaze and then they too realized their total, abject failure.

"But how?" he puzzled. He was certain they'd passed the Outcasts days ago, even before the southern spire...before turning east to swing...

"No!" he hissed, his stomach clenching so forcefully that he bent forward a bit. He had considered the shorter route briefly, back when the Outcasts had taken such a commanding lead at the onset of the race, but had discarded such an all-or-nothing approach to the race. After all, that tiny sliver of an avenue was sheer madness. Now he realized his lack of daring had cost him and his team badly. He didn't know just yet how far behind them he'd finished, but by the appearance of the stands, he guessed it was substantial...and his superiors would be livid no matter what.

The pride and joy he'd felt only moments before suddenly twisted and knotted in his gut to leave the sharp, metallic taste of bile clearly in his mouth.

This was going to be a very grim day, he concluded.

Cache Kuar was already aboard the _Darlile_ by then, waiting for her portal probe to dock. Just as she'd done on every other planet, she left the grandstands after the Outcasts had safely completed their task, and made her way to some isolated countryside location she'd previously chosen. There on Aquaria, she used an aerial taxi service to deliver her to a thickly wooded park at the outskirts of Mariana where her probe hovered under the cover of the forest's canopy. In barely half a bort, she was strolling up the cabin in the secure confines of the nearly impenetrable warbird.

The black ship was presently sitting on the surface of Bilzine, the fourth moon of Aquaria. It was a dead satellite with almost no Triad influence, so Cache didn't worry about her presence being discovered. It took almost two billots for the probe to reach her, but she wasn't leaving until the _Shurnoot_ launched anyway, so she just sat at her pilot station and monitored the chatter across the heavens. She was in an excellent mood after that phenomenal win even though she'd only wagered a small amount...always suspicious of what the Kreete might do to solidify their success.

As she monitored the _Shurnoot_ powering up its drives, she was chuckling at the video of the Kreete team gliding into their birth at the dock at Vassarr. She would have given her entire fortune for the chance to stand there in front of the entire Triad and laugh in their smug faces.

Just then however, the Outcasts' transport moved off, so she lit the twin powerplants of her own creation and set off for the next stage of the Games feeling very much at ease.

Up above the rose-colored atmosphere...aboard the communication ship, the _Confarii_... the central command post was vacant again. The newest "Production Commander" for the Games was off trying to explain his way out of a death sentence.

The slave Arsisi however, was more jubilant than ever. Her favorite team, the one containing her dream-man, Itsu (Shartae the Invincible), had taken the lead once more, and the rising chatter from around the Triad was most seductive. She followed many of the com feeds that intercepted illegal, subversive communications between unknown factions across the Kreete domain, and she began to yearn for more. It was clear that there were several groups trying to find a way to free themselves from their alien rulers. It was also evident that they were clever enough to avoid the Lords' vast technological prowess to remain secret. All this she'd known about for many santaris, but it wasn't until recently that she understood their wish to break free. Watching the Games had opened her eyes to the ways of her masters. Their nonstop pledge of honor and integrity was a sham, a lie, a pretense that glossed over their undeniable need for power. She began to pray that there was something she could do to expose those lies...

She quietly, yet diligently went about her cleaning duties, never imagining what opportunity might be right around the corner.

### Chapter Thirty-two

### Unforeseen events

"My Lord," Maice pleaded. "There was no way I could have anticipated that..."

"SILENCE!" Praetor Jocory Teel commanded harshly, his face livid and trembling. He was the spokesman for the sitting members of the Triad Council. They of course preferred not to speak directly to a lowly communications officer, no matter his temporarily heightened importance.

"The Council has sat by too long, hoping one of you fools might excrete some idea from your overfed asses, but apparently that was too much to ask. This embarrassment has continued for too long and the entire Empire has seen our 'Elite' team become laughing stocks to a group of slaves. Therefore we have taken care of the problem ourselves.

"Go back to your station and make certain that no information escapes about the 'unfortunate' incident. Understand?"

"Yes...of course! It will be kept quiet."

Maice then took his leave and hurried back to the command station.

Arsisi was just finishing up her cleaning duties when he returned, and was so surprised she fairly jumped back to her standby position at the rear of the room.

"Fetch me drink and food, Slave!" he growled at her as he began restoring his console to the active status.

"Yes, Lord!" Arsisi replied, leaping up and dashing to take care of his wants.

She wasn't gone long, but when she'd placed his meal beside him she backed away with her eyes probing the station for what had him so worked up.

It didn't take long before she realized what her master was doing.

Up on the large screen was a simplified depiction of the thirty-six ships still in competition. Only two small blips were hurtling through space by then...one was the Destroyers' transport which had just broke orbit, and the other was the Outcasts' which was well into the acceleration phase of their journey. The remainders of the teams were still finishing up the challenge.

Draake's squad would get a slight edge over them by being the first at the new venue and able to adjust to the new gravity longer, but their haste really had more to do with the slow transoptic speed of the _Shurnoot_ than to gain an advantage.

Maice made a few quick moves at his console and the blip that was the Outcasts' ship disappeared from the center screen, instead, popping up on a side monitor that only he could see. Three of the technicians out on the floor of the com-room noticed the change and attempted to correct the discrepancy, but when they tried to access the transponder's code, a warning flashed: "Level seven eyes only".

Arsisi immediately knew something was very wrong, and that it concerned Itsu's team. Any contact with the _Shurnoot_ , outside the command station that Maice controlled, was now totally blocked. The Outcasts were isolated completely.

Her heart began to beat faster and she trembled.

Maice then ate his supper and watched the small screen.

It took three billots before a change occurred, and Arsisi was a nervous wreck when it finally did.

The Outcasts' ship, the _Shurnoot_ , was only a third the way through the acceleration phase up to light speed. Everyone on board had been locked in their cryo-gel chambers for a while except for Brome. It was his turn to stand guard. Draake refused to allow the ship to run itself without someone awake to monitor it, and since the Benoits were less affected by the acceleration quotients, it was always one of them who got the duty.

He had access to the entire ship, including the cockpit, but knew better than to try to make adjustments to the flight management computer, so for the most part, he just kept an eye on the safety systems...fire warnings, oxygen leaks, collision alerts...that sort of thing.

On a vessel that size though, Brome had no way of actually seeing another ship unless it flew right passed his seat. So in that respect, he couldn't possibly have notice the small, sleek, one-man fighter spacecraft as it nudged up alongside toward the aft end of the ship. That attack craft also had excellent camouflage capabilities that fooled the transport's sensors easily, so if anyone ever became suspicious and tried to review the log, there would be nothing to find.

The Viper Class vessel eased up to within a few dozen peors of the right engine nacelle before a small round object broke free of it and drifted slowly over to the _Shurnoot_. When the spherical device touched the fuselage of the larger craft, it fired a tiny piton into the hull that secured it in place. An instant later, the fighter broke away from the larger ship and disappeared from the screen.

Arsisi's stomach clenched tightly at that sight. She felt certain that a bomb had just been planted to destroy her hero's ship and kill them all. She swooned and fought against her nausea, having to hunch over and breathe deeply to counter the effects.

A few litas after the fighter was away, Maice released the transponder tracker once more and got to his feet. The Outcasts' transport returned to the unrestricted monitors as if nothing had happened. The time record was even scrubbed to obliterate any trail of impropriety.

"Humph!" he grunted before turning and walking back through his private door.

When he was gone for a good ten borts, Arsisi rose on quivering legs and stepped closer. She then could see a timer had been set and was counting down. There was almost fourteen billots left on it. That time coincided exactly with the timer for the ship to reach transoptic speed.

"When they engage the transoptic-drive, the ship will explode!" she concluded.

Cache Kuar was at that very moment sitting in her pilot's chair tearing through space as well. She wasn't in a hurry, but even at the moderate acceleration rate she was maintaining, the _Darlile_ would reach transoptic speed nearly a full billot before the _Shurnoot_. She was passing the time by watching the events once more...particularly the ones where Ron's team beat the Kreete. She found those tremendously gratifying.

She also kept a program running that continually monitored the frequencies that had been utilized over the past cycles by rebellious sects across the Triad. At present, the electronic waves were packed with snippets of discussions concerning the Games, and everyone was overjoyed at the success of the Outcasts. Several had guessed correctly about who Ron was, and the very mention of the name of Shartae had filled the listeners with hope. After all, how could even the mighty Kreete prevail against that invincible, unstoppable, phenomenal man?

She'd used the _Darlile_ 's sensors to follow their luxury transport into space and had seen that it was unhindered and not followed, so she'd merely relaxed into the mode of passenger and sped on ahead to keep her ship's presence secret.

Since the Kreete were very aware of the _Darlile_ , she could hardly allow it to be seen in the proximity of the Outcasts' ship after all; for fear that the Kreete would simply attack it under the pretense of collaboration with her.

Under that guise, Cache had taken her beloved spaceship on a totally separate vector from the _Shurnoot_ and then turned so she would arrive parallel to them at the next stop.

Her sensors were all showing that she was completely alone in the wide expanse of space, so that peaceful seclusion lulled her into a mild stupor...that is, until the alert chime rang out.

She jumped sharply at the tone, and then it took her a moment to realize that it wasn't a danger warning at all, only a message. She still stared at it with deep concern however because it wasn't the ship's com that had sounded, but rather her own, personal link with the Games' brokers...the gambling syndicate.

"How could they possibly have tracked me?" she puzzled, until it occurred to her that it wasn't a tracker signal at all, just a nano-burst...an information blurb.

" _Darlile_ , place a force ten firewall around that data file."

"Done," replied the ship.

"All right," she mumbled half-heartedly, "let us see what you are."

Cache then touched her finger to the flat console and opened the file. Instantly, a video popped up on the viewer. It was from inside a small craft moving through space at a fast rate...possibly half VL-1. Beside the cockpit of the small ship was a very large vessel, easily a hundred times as massive, but she couldn't identify it from the limited viewpoint. A gloved hand reached out and pressed a "launch" indicator on the control console of the small ship and a metallic ball began silently gliding away toward the larger craft.

When the ball touched the ship's hull, the smaller ship moved away from the larger one aggressively and cut its power by half.

Cache sat there wondering what the video clip could mean since she had no reference to draw on about either vessel, and then a written message scrolled across the screen. The first twenty characters were spatial coordinates...presumably where the two ships were. Next was the velocity it was traveling at and its acceleration rate. After that came the countdown clock. And finally; "Please...can you help them?"

That was it. That was the end of the entire transmission.

Cache was understandably confused. Was it a random plea sent to someone else...or to anyone at all? If it was a prank, then why send it to her. There were no tags on it...no tracer links. Cache furrowed her brow in concentration.

" _Darlile_ , is there any way to identify that large ship in the video?" she queried, always ready to solve any kind of problem confronting her, especially a baffling one like this.

"Yes. The coordinates given, along with the time-stamp, velocity, and heading, confirm that the vessel in question is the _Shurnoot_."

Cache felt her blood run cold at that statement. Suddenly, even though she didn't fully understand exactly what was going on, she was convinced of one thing. Ron was under attack!

" _Darlile_ , I need you to intercept that ship before that counter reads zero! And preferably with enough time to evacuate those on board. Do you understand?"

"Affirmative."

"Can you do it?"

"Affirmative, but you may be injured."

"I do not care! Get me to Ron before that thing can do anything to him!"

Instantaneously every restraint built into the _Darlile_ 's safety protocols flew out and enveloped its petite commander. And a half lita after that, the ship took a hard left and bolted forward.

Even though the black ship was far ahead of the Usurper's transport, jogging over to meet up with it would eat up a lot of time at their current distance of separation. She just hoped it wasn't too much.

For the following six billots, Cache fought against the stresses of acceleration and one more course correction before she was finally in the wake of the ship she wanted...and the entire time, she was watching twin counters...one was synced up with the countdown timer, and the other was the intercept estimate. It was going to be very close.

During a period when Cache could actually speak and think clearly, she tried to understand what to prepare for.

" _Darlile_ , can you identify that object the alien craft attached to the Outcasts?"

"Negative."

"Any postulations?"

"A weapon is the most obvious."

"Yes, but if the ship was destroyed by a weapon, it would be clear to everyone that the Kreete had assassinated the only team that had ever posed a challenge to them. There would be riots and uprisings across the Empire...even by their own people. It would be a tremendous loss of face and of respect for their leaders."

"Agreed."

"Where did it attach, exactly? Can you tell?"

"Affirmative. It was placed outside the hull at the control juncture for the hyper-light-drive."

That sent Cache's mind spinning again.

"What were they doing?" she pondered. "If they disable the drive, the team will never make the appointed arrival time and be disqualified, but the tampering will surely be discovered. In fact, anything short of total destruction of the ship would also be a likewise disaster of embarrassment.

"No, they must be trying to destroy the spacecraft...but it would have to be something very...oh no!

" _Darlile_ , what dangers must the _Shurnoot_ pass by on its heading?"

"The most significant hazard is the red giant, Kiomar 1037, approximately twelve parsecs ahead of them."

"If the FTL-drive (faster than light) was disconnected just prior to their reaching that star, they would be..."

She couldn't even finish the thought, so panicked was she.

"Vaporized," the ship's avatar completed.

"How does that countdown timer match up with that theory?"

"Not well. The timer will read zero just as the transoptic drive initiates."

"How much time would it take before the _Shurnoot_ reaches dangerous proximity to the star, at the rate it normally operates?"

"Approximately fifty-seven point six borts."

Cache's mind went into overdrive considering every type of bomb she could imagine.

"But if they use an explosive, the ship will certainly register it," she postulated, "and before it was pulled into the star, it would automatically send out the information from its emergency pulse beacon. That is standard safety protocol.

"No, it cannot be a bomb," she finally admitted.

"Can we communicate with the _Shurnoot_? Can we send them a warning?"

"The ship is completely automated, so the communications array is powered to its minimum setting unless someone on board changes it."

She thought for another long while before another angle hit her.

" _Darlile_ , show me a schematic of exactly where the 'device' was placed please."

Instantly, a three dimensional depiction of the information appeared on the wide viewer in front of Cache. She spun it about one full circle on both axis before she saw what she was looking for.

"What is...that?" she asked, using her mental connection with the ship to point to what she was staring at. (The acceleration rate easily prevented her from moving her limbs at all.)

"That is the primary power conduit that provides power to the hyper-light-drive."

"And this one?"

"That is the backup power conduit."

"So this particular point happens to be the place where the two power feeds for the drive are the closest in physical proximity?"

"Yes."

Her mind whirred along at a blistering pace, trying to coordinate the timer with some type of act that would result in the destruction of the ship...yet maintain its secrecy.

"If they used a laser to cut the cables, the drive would simply power down, the distress call would go out, and the team would be picked up. They would never be in any real danger. It just does not make sense!"

From then, Cache became more and more anxious.

At last, the _Darlile_ was in visual contact and closing fast on the _Shurnoot_. Cache grunted out a command.

"As soon as we are within range, shut down their engines."

"Not possible," the _Darlile_ replied calmly. "Breaking through the ship's command firewall will take approximately three borts, and the hyper-light-drive is already primed."

Cache had already anticipated that however, and shifted to plan B.

"Eject the pods!"

The emergency escape systems of passenger vessels were kept on a much less secure part of the ship's computer core, therefore allowing rescue teams easier access to boarding a troubled craft.

Luckily for the Outcasts, the ship Jazz had prepared for them was a commercial vessel with baseline emergency protocols that were common across the industry. As such, each cryo-gel chamber was its own lifeboat pod. And since everyone was in their cryo-gel containers, they were locked securely in their pods...everyone except Brome, that is.

Just as the blue lightning began to sprout and dance around the huge transport ship, ten small containers sprang from the enormous vessel and began spreading out from its massive bulk. A lita and a half later, the _Shurnoot_ winked out of existence to those still in sub-light space.

The _Darlile_ immediately stopped accelerating and released Cache from her constricting safety cocoon. She flew forward as if someone had suddenly hit the brakes, and then she gulped in a few deep breaths.

"Beep-beep-beep...Emergency evacuation...beep-beep..."

"Kill the beacons!" Cache then ordered frantically.

"Done," replied her avatar partner.

"How are the men?"

"All six appear to be well...still asleep and in stasis."

"Good then, we just need to...wait! Did you say si...?"

"Warning!" the _Darlile_ announced abruptly, the screen immediately lighting up with a written notice as well. "Radiation stream detected!"

"Oh no-no-no-no-no! How far?"

"One bort away."

Cache glanced across her screen and tensed once more. The boats were drifting apart quickly, and soon she wouldn't be able to protect them all with the _Darlile_ 's shields.

"You said six men earlier, right?"

"Correct."

"Is Ron in one of them?"

"Affirmative."

She then began to breathe again. "Target all that have passengers and work out the most efficient pattern of collection...starting with his!"

"Ready."

As fast as she could, Cache began corralling the pods into a smaller group...one that didn't expand any further.

"Who is missing from the Outcasts' team?"

"Bromethius Carennigy. He was in the pilot's seat when the _Shurnoot_ jumped to faster than light travel."

Cache cursed their untimely luck at that. Losing one of the Benoits would likely affect the team greatly. But she had to admit she was incredibly grateful it wasn't Ron.

"Thirty litas."

"I can see the dragen counter," she grumbled as she carefully pushed two more into the group.

She headed out for the last pod when...

"Contact imminent!"

Cache cringed as she corralled that final container a bit more roughly than she wanted to, but hauled it back to the group with half a lita to spare. The _Darlile_ 's umbrella of protection snapped around them just as the shields lit up with an Aurora Borealis type of glow.

She then sat there and watched as the four empty pods outside the shields began to glow red as they were irradiated by the ejection stream of a nearby neutron star. The lifeboats were shielded against normal stellar radiation, but were never meant to encounter the intense gamma and X-ray bombardment of that type of particle stream.

Cache sat trembling at the prospect of what would have happened without her assistance.

Traveling close to light speed though, at least assured that they would pass through the ejection plume fairly quickly, and when they were clear, Cache timidly triggered the sensor that scanned the boats for life signs. All were fine. Their seals were intact and the men inside them would never know anything had happened until they were told.

" _Darlile_ , are you still monitoring the _Shurnoot_ 's flight?"

"Yes. I have the telemetry, via the Kreete Intergalaxian Tracking Network."

The viewer then swapped over to show the information the _Darlile_ was referring to, and Cache saw the transponder of the _Shurnoot_ zipping through deep space. The depiction clearly displayed the Red Giant star, Kiomar 1037 almost directly in the path of the crippled ship.

"Before the ship made the transition, did you get a good scan of the Kreete device?"

"Yes. When the timer reached zero, the sphere opened its shell. It is a telemetric receiver, and is paired with a large vial of hiporazine acid."

"So when it detects the proximity of the Red Giant, it will disperse the acid that will sever both power feeds to the FTL-drive."

"That would appear to be a logical presumption."

"What will happen to the ship if our suspected scenario plays out?" she asked begrudgingly.

"The ship will likely drop out of transoptic travel within one million hoz of the star, on a heading that would send it fifty thousand hoz inside the sun's gravitational escape threshold. That will put the _Shurnoot_ in a proximity that will be too powerful for the normal drives to overcome, even at the speed it is moving. It will then spiral inward toward the Kiomar star at a rate of a thousand hoz per bort until it reaches the photosphere. Radiation from the Red Giant will overwhelm the ship's shields within the first ten borts. At that point any passenger still aboard will be irradiated with deadly amounts..."

"Stop!" Cache ordered, not able to listen to what awaited Brome.

"Is there any chance he might escape in one of the crew's lifeboats?"

"Negative."

Cache closed her eyes for a few moments, sickened by the tragedy and angered at the cold-blooded fashion of how it came to be. But she couldn't afford to dwell on it, so she forced herself to accept what she 'had' accomplished and got back to work.

After some fast calculations, she found that six cryo-chambers took up too much room to get into the _Darlile_ 's cargo bay, so she briefly considered pulling just Ron's in and making a quick getaway. She could report the others to the Games Committee and just let them wonder about what had happened to him. She wanted so badly for him to be safe. But she knew Ron would not have accepted that.

" _Darlile_ ," she finally said, "since we cannot bring the pods aboard, search for a new transport for the team."

It took barely five borts.

"The _Vastoria_ is awaiting passengers on Aquaria. It is a charter vessel, very fast, and has space for one hundred."

Cache perused the ship's stats quickly, finding the vessel would meet their needs well. Their fee was substantial, but she just chuckled to herself about it.

"I guess I know what to do with my winnings now."

A moment later she triggered the com.

" _Vastoria_ , this is a representative for the Outcasts team. We have had problems and need assistance. Can you accommodate us?"

Tilvan Wusart, Captain of the _Vastoria,_ was used to wealthy clients who needed pampering and luxury, not a group of muscle-bound refugees...especially the Benoits...so he was less inclined to be hospitable.

"Sorry, but we are booked to capacity and cannot..."

She knew they only had a third of their seats filled, but didn't want to waste time quibbling.

"I want to charter your entire ship and will double your usual fee!"

"Give me your coordinates!" Tilvan replied hastily. Such a fortune was not a thing he would willingly turn down. "We can launch in one billot!"

"One more thing," Cache then added. "I want this kept quiet! Do you understand?"

"No problem," Tilvan replied with a serious tone. He was more than familiar with some of the "accidents" that happened in deep space under the Kreete's watchful eye.

His ship already had permission for the route they were headed on, and there was nothing in their bylaws to require him to report any brief pit-stops he might make.

Cache sent the required information and then set the ship on high alert, covering her charges with the _Darlile_ 's protection like a mother goose sheltered her goslings. While she waited, she almost wished that fighter spacecraft that had sabotaged the _Shurnoot_ would return to the scene so she could seek justice for poor Brome, but the time passed quietly.

By the time the _Vastoria_ launched, the _Shurnoot_ was well within the gravitational pull of Kiomar 1037, and its only passenger had been dead for quite a while. The scenario that the _Darlile_ had laid out proved to be extremely accurate too. Its auto-nav computer was still making corrections to avoid the inevitable, but even at one hundred and twenty percent rated power, the normal drive-engines had no chance against the super-giant star.

Another billot saw the ship enter the photosphere and disappear.

Aboard the _Confarii_ , Maice sat in his huge seat and smiled, while behind him Arsisi wept quietly. She couldn't believe the man everyone was convinced could not be killed had perished in such a cowardly fashion. Her anger at her masters showed on her too, as her whole body burned crimson.

The dramatic demise of the ship was seen by the entire Empire and immediate speculation about what could have happened jumped to the forefront of the news feeds.

That story was the topic of conversation on hundreds of worlds and thousands of ships hurtling through space. Many human commentators hinted that such a loss was much too coincidental, and that the Kreete were the ones to gain the most by the Outcasts' deaths. Of course, the Kreete viewpoint was all about faulty drives, poor fuel containment, and computer failure.

Almost twenty billots later though, when Maice had returned to his command station for the beginning of his next duty period, his breakfast was interrupted by a breaking story that immediately eclipsed all the previous rants and deflections.

When the pods had all been reeled in and their passengers moved safely aboard the _Vastoria_ , Cache Kuar had released a short announcement across the airwaves.

"Six of the Outcasts have survived the demise of the _Shurnoot_ and are currently on their way to rejoin the other competitors in the Triad Games!"

That incredible report caused a tidal wave of excitement across the Empire...as well as immediate consternation within it. The Lords watched with skepticism at first, and then outright anger, while every other faction accepted it with open, widespread elation.

Arsisi felt like she would explode with joy. Maice however, was less than jubilant at the news. His first reaction was to leap to his feet and hurl his drinking goblet against the wall. Then he paced the room as if the executioners were already on their way.

"I had nothing to do with any of it!" he kept saying.

It took an entire billot before he could bring himself to calm down again, and that was only after he'd received the request for updates about the next event. He quickly rationalized that if his superiors were going to replace him, they certainly would have waited to speak with his successor. He then hurriedly returned to his command chair and relayed the data with a much lighter attitude.

Chapter Thirty-three

### Steeplechase

The _Vastoria_ 's crew didn't have time to awaken the team, explain what had transpired, reinstall them in their acceleration chambers, and still make the deadline to the next event, so they did what they could. Furthermore, Captain Wusart saw no reason to waste his profits on staffing the ship for a hundred passengers when there would be only six, so when it arrived at the rescue coordinates, there were only five souls aboard the interstellar cruise liner.

That small crew worked feverishly the entire day, gathering the lifeboats, extracting the cryo-pods, and lashing them down in suitable restraints. Then they had to push the ship to its limits to deliver them to the designated planet before their allotted time was up.

Once planet-side, the captain followed Cache's explicit orders that they have no contact with the team at all...which was more than fine with him. He simply placed the ship's avatar in charge of the Outcasts' needs.

Six days of cryo-sleep left Ron with a massive headache once again, so he didn't catch on right off about the different accommodations, but as he stood in the shower after awakening, rinsing off the inertia-dampening gel, his mind was already testing the parameters of his new environment. He could tell immediately that the ship was stationary, and that caused him a bit of anxiousness. If they'd landed before rousing the team, that meant they'd just barely made it on schedule. He then wondered exactly how much time he would be given to adjust to this world. His answer came quickly.

"All team members must report to the mess immediately!" rang an announcement over the intercom. It was the all-to-familiar, gravelly voice of Draake Tarbold, and his former pride in his teammates seemed to have dimmed over the break.

Ron glanced around and saw Dex making his way slowly and shakily out of the stasis chamber. Fraidze's pod was already empty, as was Bart's. The drying cycle began at that point so Ron closed his eyes and tried to calm his body.

Once he dried off, Ron moved quickly in the direction of his quarters, but when he took a step toward the old familiar route he'd expected, he finally realized that all was not right and he froze.

Ron panned the large room slowly, already revving his animal instincts into the protective mode. Although much was similar to the previous vessel, at least in that particular room, the ship had a different smell, feel, and sound to it. For a moment, he considered the possibility that they'd all been kidnapped, but there were no guards and he sensed no threat. Also, the interior was brighter than the previous one, much newer, and was immaculately kept.

"What happened while we were out?" he pondered warily. That was one of the many reasons Ron preferred the _Darlile_ to other forms of travel. Even though it was much more of a strain on his body, he could stay awake during the entire journey.

After a few more litas of inspection, when he was convinced that there was no impending danger, he merely spoke to the ship as he'd done with the other.

"What ship is this?"

"The _Vastoria_ ," the avatar replied with complete calm. The ship's captain was listening nervously over the intercom. He was fully aware that there were Ultras onboard and fervently hoped he was not summoned.

"What happened to the _Shurnoot_?"

"We have received reports that it was destroyed."

"Destroyed? How?"

"For an unknown reason, the _Shurnoot_ dropped out of transoptic flight too close to a red giant star. It could not escape the gravitational effect."

Ron felt certain there was more to the story than that, but the ship would have elaborated if it had known, so he changed mental directions.

"Please show me to my room."

Five borts later, after a hasty shower, Ron stood at the doorway of his quarters half-dressed and asked for the dining section.

Draake would fill in the details.

A clear path instantly appeared on the floor with holographic arrow signs floating a foot above it which flashed in a retreating fashion. He then strode toward the mess-hall with due haste. From there his mind went back to the Games.

The pull of the planet was very strong and he had to shorten his usually lengthy strides to account for it.

"10.3 at least," he guessed. "What else will we have to get used to? What will the water taste like...or the air? Will the sun be white, yellow, or orange?"

A thousand questions began rushing in again, but he quelled them with his pragmatic will. Burning calories on worry was a waste of his energy. Whatever awaited them would come soon enough and he knew the answers he wanted would begin there at the breakfast table. He would be patient. Too, the scents from the kitchen narrowed his thoughts to more pressing needs...the barrel of food he craved!

The new facility worked exactly like the old one, but the menu was different, so he spent a few litas going over it...but not many...he was famished.

Ron noted that the trio of Benoits was incomplete, which was odd because they typically seemed almost joined at the hip. He just shrugged it off though.

"Brome probably ate already," he presumed.

Ron was just getting served when Dex...the last of the humans...plopped down across from him and ordered his meal. Everyone else was already well into theirs' and the present pair of Benoits looked restless. A moment later the briefing started.

"Brome is dead," Draake said directly, with no softening of it whatsoever.

Every head snapped up at that, instantly forgetting their food.

"What?" Fraidze asked, losing part of the mouthful of breakfast he was enjoying.

"There was an incident with the previous ship that caused our lifeboats to eject. The vessel then flew into a star and was destroyed. He was manning the cockpit, but could not escape. We were picked up by this ship...the _Vastoria_. It will accommodate us from here on."

"We have landed on the world known as Jarhress," Draake then announced, as if such a disaster commonly occurred during every flight.

"Wait a lita!" Dex protested an instant before Ron could. "Why did the last ship...?"

"That is of no concern!" Draake growled, leaning in menacingly and forcing Dex to pull back in retreat. "Concentrate on the present...not the past!"

"So that was that?" Ron mused to himself. "It was just a tragic accident?"

His cynical side immediately threw that out. Nothing in his last three and a half cycles of life had been so simple. Draake did not know the truth. That was clear...and that was why he and Al were so keyed up now. Jazz and her allies had apparently refused to tell them.

Draake then returned to the briefing as if he'd never stopped. Ron swiftly concluded that perhaps that was for the best. They needed to focus.

"It is a class 10.4 planet in the Rothan Sector.

"10.4!" Bart huffed. "No wonder I felt like I'd gained so much weight...I did!"

Dex smiled and nodded, already back to gulping down his food.

"So what's the event?" Fraidze inquired.

"The only information we have is that it is called 'the Darvanian Pursuit'."

Ron's translator chip broke it down to a more basic form in his mind: "the Overland Race".

"If it is anything like I'm expecting, we should all eat as much as we can now because we will be moving fast and living off rations for the next seven days! And in case you hadn't noticed, we arrived barely in time to meet the posted deadline, so we must get going to the assembly area which is four hoz away. You have five borts!"

No one spoke after that, too consumed with more important things. Only the clinking of metal to china and the slurping of beverages sounded.

When those five borts had ticked off, Ron and his teammates were still cramming that delicious breakfast down their throats in a mad hurry to get the most nutrition into their bodies that they could before being hustled out of the ship by the giant Benoi captain.

Into the open air they went, with Fraidze still chomping on food he'd carried with him from the table. But once there, they all quickly paused at what they saw.

The first reaction they had to the new environment was dumbfounded surprise. The land was very open and relatively flat, with short, squat, bright-red bushes sporadically growing out of a landscape of burnt orange scrub-grass. It was rather startling when compared to the contrasting, emerald green sky that hovered above, and each team member rubbed his eyes before accepting the sight as true.

"Wow!" Dex let out in a hushed sigh.

Once again there were ships resting on the ground for at least a hoz and a half in all directions, spaced far apart. There was a total of thirty-one transports, but only one other team could be seen in the distance, and they were moving away at a run.

Draake was first to break the spell of the alien sight and checked for directional cues. He quickly swept the landscape and got his bearings from the aerial indicators all about, hanging above them like the marker flares the Kreete used. It was a simple and effective guide to direct the teams to the gathering point.

"This way," he said gruffly, pointing to the hills on the horizon. Then he set out without further commentary.

Everyone used the time to acclimate to the new world, adjusting to the gravity, to the feel of the soft turf under their feet, and to the moist, fragrant air. The temperature was cool and comfortable in the early billots of dawn, aiding them in their exertions.

Nearly half a billot later they dropped from the fast jogging pace they'd used to a more leisurely walking stride as they arrived at the point of congregation. It was a large, open glade of thick but closely mown grassland, and had a raised dais prominently positioned so all could see.

The teams were not separated as before, where the captains had to relay much of the itinerary. Instead, an announcement was made that covered the broad expanse with loud and clear ease. It was broadcast in dozens of languages at once, somehow filtered so that each individual could pick out their own without the clutter of hearing the others. Once again, the Kreete technology was impressive.

"My name is Prime Minister Ardvante Deitrum," proclaimed a tall, lithe man standing on the podium. "You have arrived on the planet Jarhress...and this is phase four of the ninety-second edition of the Games of the Kreete Triad!"

The audience of competitors made no movement, nor sound. Every soul in attendance was mesmerized by the words of the man. Their lives most likely depended on it.

"If you have not been told, this is the competition called 'the Darvanian Pursuit' by the Lords. On our world, it is a time-honored sport that dates back to the days when our ancestors had to travel great distances on foot to find and capture their sustenance. We now refer to it as 'the Steeplechase'.

"The rules are both simple and complex, and are as such:

"One; the course is basic. We have a unique geographic irregularity here on Jarhress that makes for an interesting test of the competitors. It is chiefly an area of dramatic, naturally alternating topography formed into a large arc that will deliver similar challenges to all, and yet keep each group equidistant from each other, as well as from the finish. This also allows for all teams to begin at the same time, which is mandatory because of the length of the trial. And while no two teams will have the same route, I assure you...one and all...that each has equally hazardous and equally demanding tests, and thus will effectively remove any perceived or imagined advantage.

"You will be expertly oriented at the beginning, so pay close attention. Afterward you will receive no assistance. You must travel from your individual starting points toward the center of the arc by whatever route or means you deem fitting.

"The last few hoz will be obvious once you get there, and you must complete your task by reaching the Czar's podium to get your finish position recorded.

"Rule two; No member of one team may interfere with any other team.

"Three; Each member counts as 96 points. Every billot they finish behind the lead team's last man deducts seven points from their team's tally. If a contestant fails to finish, the team is automatically penalized all 96 points, plus an additional 48. If they perish, their points are lost but no added penalties are ensued.

"Rule four; you may utilize whatever equipment you carry at the beginning, plus anything picked up along the way...discarded items from some other race possibly. Also, you may construct tools or weapons from the habitat you pass through.

"Five; if you deviate from your assigned course more than half of a hoz, you will be destroyed."

That announcement seemed a bit harsh, and so hasty murmuring began.

"How will we know if we've drifted too far?" asked one of the Horashians...a gruff-looking, hairy breed from a sector at the far reaches of the empire. They reminded Ron of the Earthly lore of werewolves...very bestial and fierce-looking.

"A proximity alarm will sound and will grow increasingly urgent the closer you get to the boundary. Any other questions?"

"The equipment you spoke of...where..." asked a heavily muscled fellow from the team of Orgosians. They were fair-skinned and powerfully built, and each had bright white hair and pale green eyes.

"Your assembly area will have what you are allowed," Deitrum broke in. "Each group will have identical offerings...in case you are wondering.

"Anything else?"

Silence.

"Very well. You may move to your designated positions now."

At that point the teams were directed to transports at the edge of the open field. There was a separate hover-tram for each squad, identified with their designating banner. The shuttles had windows, but they clouded up immediately after take-off so no one might get an aerial view of their route. Ron couldn't tell the speed of the craft, but less than a billot later they were touching down.

The Outcasts filed nervously out behind Draake and took in the scene with mounting tension. The deep emerald coloring of the sky had softened with the sunrise to more of a teal hue, and that set an inspiring backdrop to the cloud mottled vista and the lush amber verdure of the land.

It was cool and breezy, and clearly they were at some lofty altitude because the air was also thin and dry. Ron's mind went instantly into the woodsman mode and he began separating the smells and sounds of the nearby forest and its inhabitants.

There was a multitude of birds all yammering at once, no doubt frightened by the shuttle and its cargo. The ground dwellers too seemed in an uproar over having been invaded by the group of interlopers, and they barked and squealed and shrieked at the team members with enthusiastic aggravation.

The terrain appeared flat where they stood, and mostly open, covered only in a thick layer of waist tall grass that waved gently in the wind, but a few sporadic stands of three or four trees were noticeable. However, there was a substantial roll of nearby hills clear to them all, about three hoz away, and the ground got steeper the farther away it went.

Ron couldn't quell his exuberance at the promise of exploring the new countryside. Fear of any would-be threat didn't even cross his mind because he knew he could face whatever came. But when he added his teammates into the mix, he felt less certain. Two of the four humans had almost no experience in the wild. They might pose a bigger danger than the beasts.

The men took only a few moments to gaze about before following Draake to the starting line, designated by a solitary individual wearing a long over-wrap garment that masked their build to indeterminable proportions.

Ron couldn't tell right away whether the person was a man or woman until the team was much closer, and even then it wasn't very obvious.

As they approached, a hoverbot drifted silently into the scene as well. It hung in the air barely a foot higher than the person's head and off their right shoulder. It was a video Cnaut. Everyone knew of course that every instruction was being broadcast across the Empire.

"I am Isiadarma," the person said with a light, lilting voice, drawing their attention away from the obvious Kreete influence of the bot. She then slid back the hood of her dark violet cloak and let it slip off her shoulders and slide softly to the grass. That slight movement revealed a fetching woman of exceptional height and curvaceous build wrapped in a form-fitting frock that accentuated her natural beauty and elegance. Her eyes were pale green and her long, wavy black hair was sensuously entwined with little white flowers down to her waist. She smiled sweetly, undoubtedly intending to exhibit a calming, relaxed attitude toward her guests, but instead, revealed a rather shocking row of dagger-like teeth when she did so.

That sight quickly removed the innocent appeal of her otherwise lovely countenance. She noticed the surprised look on their faces and interjected another disconcerting thought.

"Do not be alarmed, gentlemen. I fed before you arrived."

Dex, Bart, and Fraidze all exchanged incredulous looks and sideways glances at her. Ron took careful note of her three-inch-long, metal-shod fingernails.

She smiled brightly once more, but the men decided to keep their distance outside of arms' reach all the same. She seemed a bit befuddled by their attitude but shrugged it off and continued.

"I have been tasked with explaining your course, so if you would permit me, we shall begin.

"Your group will be heading in this direction...east-southeast. The ridge we are currently on runs roughly perpendicular to that, so you will notice a sharp descent during the first leg, but there will be many rises and falls along the way. There will also be river crossings and sheer cliffs, so keep that in mind when choosing your equipment."

"How far is it to the finish line?" Dex asked.

"As the Darrshe flies...ninety-eight hoz."

"Are there deadly animals on the course?" Draake inquired.

"Yes, there are several."

"Flying, walking, or crawling?" Fraidze ventured.

"Yes," Isiadarma replied with another smile.

Dex shuddered and turned away, unable to accept the divergent creature before him.

"What about landmarks?" Ron asked while searching the terrain for such items. All that they could really see were gentle forest-covered hill-tops. They would be past those by the first nightfall.

"I can provide you with no such information. You must prevail by direction alone...although the proximity devices will keep you from wandering too far off course."

Ron was dismayed by that news. This was going to be a totally blind affair. That could be extremely time consuming and dangerous. No doubt that was the reason it took seven days to travel a mere hundred hoz.

"The water you find along the way will be drinkable, and any game you kill should be safe to eat...as long as you stay away from their poison glands."

That tidbit raised some eyebrows.

"Now, if you will kindly follow me, we will get you ready to go."

They hurried off toward the north to where a large tent was erected, and followed Isiadarma inside. There they found six long tables loaded with gear of a hundred different sorts. Ron heard several of his comrades inquiring quietly about what some of the items were...and what they were intended for.

"There is a backpack for each of you, setting there," she indicated to a smaller table. "Each is fitted to your bodies' individual parameters and has the typical staples...food, an empty water bladder, and fire-starting tools. You may take whatever else you can carry either in your pack or on your persons, but you can only pick one weapon each, and no two teammates may have a similar one...a single sword, knife, spear, or such. You have seven borts to choose what you wish from the selection here."

"Seven borts!" Bart protested. "It'll take half a billot just to look through this stuff!"

Isiadarma just smiled and stood to the side. "Begin," she said lightly.

Bart was right too. There were literally hundreds of items laid out on tables or hung from the tent's support poles. Ron wondered; if they were limiting each person to only one item, then why not simply have one of each. It quickly became apparent why not. There were at least fifty differing ropes, from thin, quarter-inch cord that one might lash something down with but could never climb, to massive two-inch rope that could moor a ship. Some even had knots pre-tied in them at differing spaces, for beings with shorter or longer arms, no doubt. There were dozens of swords, from those only the Benoits could handle, to something a child might use. And then there were equally diverse axes, clubs, and knives. Any shape and length they had ever seen was there. It reminded Ron of the Arsenal room back on Rauld where Cache had taken him to get geared up for their very first mission, although that place had been easily a hundred times the size of this tent. The one item Ron truly wished for was not there however. There was not a single bow to be had.

The Outcasts huddled up for a fast planning session to make their choices count for the group.

When the allotted time was up, a sharp chime sounded and Isiadarma sprang back into animation.

"Follow me now, please," she announced before turning and exiting the tent.

Fraidze tried to pick up one more item...a knife he noticed at the last lita...but the tables were suddenly protected by an invisible force field that gave him a painful shock.

"Son of a dragen whore!" he swore as he followed the others...two of whom snickered at his unfortunate punishment.

When they were back outside, Isiadarma quickly looked up into the sky above the horizon she'd pointed to earlier, when she'd shown them their assigned route. A moment later, two huge numbers appeared as if magically floating in the atmosphere. They began counting down from seventy in one lita increments.

Isiadarma turned back to the men once more. "You have until the counter is done to ask any more questions."

Four of them were so keyed up they couldn't have asked a coherent question if their lives depended on it. The other two...Draake Tarbold and Ron...seemed exceptionally calm and thoughtful.

"Are all the hazards we'll face natural?" Draake asked.

She smiled a wry grin. "Excellent question. Yes they are."

"Are all the creatures, both animal and plant, indigenous to this world?" Ron queried.

Isiadarma's eyes opened wide at that. "Another excellent inquiry! No...they are not!"

The team was gathered tightly together at that point and all looked to Draake for some kind of plan.

The flat, wide open land before them was now shrouded in a low-hanging fog less than a hoz ahead...the remains of heavy dew from the previous night no doubt. A gentle, but steady breeze moved away from the competitors toward that location, directly into the dawning day. With the timer passing twenty, Fraidze, Dex, and Bart drifted closely to Draake's side. The others weren't far away, stretching and preparing.

"Ron is the best woodsmen of the group," Dex offered to Draake timidly. "Maybe he should...uh, you know...uh, take point." The other men both nodded vehemently.

Draake was well informed about Ron's history, and his accomplishments on Caron. His skills were legendary across the empire...especially to those who knew firsthand that they weren't some fellow's exaggerated tales or unsubstantiated prose. And too, Draake had already acquiesced to those skills in the Marathon race.

The Benoi captain was an obstinate fellow however, and too, he knew this event would be filled with peril.

"It is my responsibility," was all Draake said.

Ron's hyper-keen ears had heard the exchange, but he swung his gaze away from them and over toward Isiadarma nonetheless, not giving his friends' praises a second thought. In his mind it was simple. This was his domain. He felt as comfortable standing on the edge of this alien wilderness as any Earth man would in a city park. His senses were turned up to full power and as he stood there calmly gazing about, he heard everything around him. The rustle of the wind passing over the tall grass rubbed their stalks together with a dull squeak. The chirping of six different species of birds that lived in that grass was thought by the others to be only two. The shifting of the feet of his nervous teammates as they stared unblinking at the countdown timer was lost to all but him, and even the slight clink of metal from the closest competitors upwind was clear. All this was done without focus, without trying. It was as easy and as effortless as keeping a bicycle upright while riding.

When his eyes settled on Isiadarma though, Ron picked up some unsettling, subtle signs from their seemingly innocuous guide. Was it nervous anticipation for such a grand moment in her world's history...with all the Triad's minions watching...or something entirely different?

### Chapter Thirty-four

### Hidden Dangers

Day 1:

As the sun rose just enough to clear the distant horizon at their back, the numbers hanging silently over the horizon they faced registered four...three...two...one; and then a single chime rang out in the warm air. There was no instrument within sight, but it sounded like a giant wooden hammer slamming into a massive gong: "Thuuuuuuunnnnnnnng!"

To the left and right, the nearest teams could just barely be seen as tiny figures huddled closely together. At the instant the start signal sounded, those participants who'd survived thus far broke into a fast run out across the highland prairie, headed for the first change in terrain...the downward slope and forest three hoz in the distance. They apparently expected this to be a straight forward test of speed and endurance.

Ron Allison however did not bolt forward, and when he held his ground, everyone else did too, watching him scour the waving grass with piercing scrutiny and wondering with high anxiety at the painful delay.

After a brief moment he locked eyes with Draake, who also had held his ground while quietly examining the route, and then he shook his head in a negative fashion.

"They are fools," Ron told him solemnly.

The giant Benoi warrior gave one nod as he pulled out the short sword he carried and looked across the bending grass. "Follow me."

Draake's reflexes on this planet were much quicker than a human's, and by normal standards he was invulnerable to almost any attack. It was prudent thinking to have him out front in such a wide open venue.

Ron nodded and stepped aside without hesitation.

"Single file," Ron told the others sternly. He was all business.

Ron fell in behind Draake, followed by Al, and then the other men.

The entire group trailed their leader with nervous expectancy, wondering at the big man's hesitance. The other groups were a hundred peors ahead already! And the weapons they carried were, as of yet, not out and at the ready.

It was barely four borts...the time it took for some participants to reach the fog...before the first screams rang out. In the blink of an eye, every weapon leaped to the on-guard state in the cool morning air. Draake held his sword, while Al gripped an enormous double-edged ax. Ron had a razor-edged machete`. Bart gripped a spear with a ten-inch, triple-bladed tip. Fraidze brandished a four-foot-long, spiked club, and Dex waved a dulchira...a slim staff equipped with a long dagger at one end and a sickle at the other.

"STOOOOOP!" ordered Draake Tarbold in a thundering bellow.

Everyone froze where they stood and scanned the tall grass as if it were a minefield.

"Itsu!" he said quickly. "Come here."

Ron made his way over to the giant cautiously, his eyes flicking about and his ears straining for audible clues. He'd given up his irritation with that moniker long in the past, so he obeyed his captain's order without rebuke.

Draake put his huge, cupped hands together and stooped over. Ron immediately knew what he wanted and climbed into them. A lita later he stood atop Draakes up-stretched hands a good fifteen feet off the ground.

"What can you see?"

Ron strained to get a good look at the nearest team with his heart pounding in his ears.

"Whatever it is, it's small...beneath the level of the grass! They've attacked it with swords...there! One of their men held it up. It's some type of mongoose, or ferret. It looks tan colored...or maybe brenal. The one who got bitten is female. She is up and hobbling about. She appears all right. The others are helping her stand and checking the...oh, shit!"

"What?" asked Al anxiously. "What's happened?"

The Benoit's vision wasn't designed for this planet, the glare of the white star was too much for his senses staring into the sunrise. In fact, Ron was the only one having no problem with it.

"She stiffened up all of a sudden, as if she was having a seizure. Now she's down! They're yelling at her." Half a bort went by while Ron stared across the wide space and his team scoured the nearby verdure with heightened interest. "She's dead! The rest of their group is moving again, but being very careful of where they step."

Draake set Ron back down and looked to his fellow Benoi, motioning him forward.

"Follow us," he told the rest. "It is less likely we will be killed by whatever is out here."

"I understand your reasoning, Draake, but my guess is that it must be poisonous, so take caution."

Draake nodded and trudged forward like an elephant, his blade at the ready and his enormous countryman beside him. Everyone else followed in the massive fellows' wake, their heads swiveling side to side in rapid fashion. Ron glanced at the other teams and saw three of them moving as slowly as they were now, while one far off speck was making excellent speed. He couldn't tell at that distance, but assumed it was the Kreete's champions. They still had all seven members and he felt certain they knew exactly what was out there and how to avoid it, or how to defend themselves against it. They had been across this land before!

Ron watched them a moment longer before they disappeared into the fog, then returned his attention to his own plight. The Outcasts continued on at what felt like a snail's pace, their nerves growing raw and jumping at every flick of the grass. The wind was picking up too, now racing across the plain, which didn't help them either, masking virtually every small creature's movement.

After fifteen borts dragged by without a sign of danger though, they began to wonder how rare the creatures were...and two of their group even suggested they chance running to keep from falling too far behind. But that all changed in an instant when cries reached them once more from their two nearest competitors. This time three men went down and a panicked riot broke out in both groups.

Ron's attention took in the attacks, but he stayed focused on his own perimeter, and it was fortunate for Al that he did. The huge fellow strode forward powerfully, swinging his head side to side in a sweeping motion as he moved, but when he looked left, a shadow leaped from the grass to the right of him. Ron surged forward in a diving jab that managed to get the flat side of his wide blade between the creature and his comrade, catching it in mid-air. The beast flipped backward and would have landed on its feet if Ron hadn't brought the cutting edge of that same weapon around in a blistering move and cleaved it in two. That one was finished, but no sooner than it fell did three more animals leap at the team from different directions.

The Benoits' ultra-heavy-worlder reflexes snapped into motion in mind-numbing speed, quelling the attack immediately in a grisly manner. Sword and axe turned the grass red with gore in a blink, and then Draake ordered everyone into a tight circle.

The team stood stock-still for several litas after that, watching every bend of grass and listening intently for further threats. Through furtive glances, everyone examined the remains of their attackers while keeping a taught vigil for more.

The beasts were feline and most similar to cougars, Ron thought, although very small in comparison. They were about the size of a coyote, but had overly long bodies when considering their legs. Their coats were multi-colored dark and light brown and blended into the grass well. The oddest parts of the creatures were their teeth, or rather fangs, as they each had four long canines that looked like small Saber tooth tiger fangs. And each of those needle-sharp, three-inch-long weapons dripped oozing green liquid.

The standoff held with tensions high until Ron caught the soft rustling of at least two more animals slinking away. Apparently they understood the concept of retreat.

"Move forward with your blades down," Ron told Draake quickly. "The blood of their fellows will warn the others of the danger."

The huge Benoi nodded his acceptance and so they took up the trek once more, striding swiftly and wondering how much time they'd lost.

Ten borts later they entered the cloud-hugging section they'd presumed was merely a fog bank, but quickly found out differently.

Ron knew immediately that they were in for more than simply high humidity by the smell he picked up at the outer fringe. The sulphur stench leaching from the ground called back on his memories of a visit to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. There too the earth belched up such foul smelling odors, warning all creatures above ground that the planet had its own moody disposition, and its own way of culling the fearless, or unwise.

"Draake!" Ron shouted. "Hold up a lita!"

Always the grumpy old bastard, Draake growled at anyone giving him orders.

"What is it, Itsu?" he asked in his typical grading voice.

"This land is unsafe. We are walking across a field that is only a shell, barely covering intense subterranean activity. This is a volcanic caldera, and with the amount of steam releasing around us, I'd guess that indicates it's more than likely highly unstable."

The group of six looked about themselves warily then, wondering exactly what they could do about it.

"We should tie ourselves together," Fraidze suggested. "So if one should break through, the rest might be able to pull him back out."

Five of the group nodded agreement, but one did not.

"Or they might drag us all in with them!" Draake argued. "Not me! I'll take my chances on my own!"

"But we can't afford to lose even one man...especially you!" Ron pleaded with the enormous fellow. "We've got too much farther to go! There are still three more events after this...if we even make it through today!"

Draake huffed impatiently, waved him off, and set out again leading the pack.

The rest followed, but hastily linked themselves to one another with a long rope Bart carried, leaving ten feet of slack between each. Ron was at one end and Al was at the other. They figured that if a Benoi were to go down, it would take all the others to pull him back.

The foggy, rotten-egg-smelling stretch wasn't too dense, allowing them to see at least fifty peors ahead, and sometimes a hundred, so they took up a fast jog, trying to gain back some of the time they'd lost. They navigated around several cave-in depressions, giving them each a wide berth, and Draake seemed to be doing quite a good job of finding the safest route, until...

At the peak of what appeared to be a gentle mound of good, solid ground, Draake heard an odd crunch as he sped over it. Ron heard it too, being fairly close behind him, and tried to give a warning yell, but it was too late.

The next step the huge Ultra took broke through the dome of thin, hot, crusty ground and he went down hard...his leg out of sight up to his thigh. The remainder of the mound (actually more closely mimicking a blister) shattered when his bulk slammed against it, and then it too collapsed. Ron saw the implosion and barely dodged being pulled into it himself, dancing to the side at the last instant.

A quick glance to their huge leader though, revealed a terrible truth. He was clinging to the crumbling edge of the newly formed crater by the slimmest of margins, and his body was engulfed in a billowing cloud of steam erupting out of the hole.

"Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!" the giant screamed with obvious pain and panic in his voice.

The entire time they'd been together, he'd never heard Draake make such a sound, and so that shocked him. Al was poised to go after his captain, but hesitated. He knew his weight on that fragile ground might only make matters worse.

Ron didn't pause for even a lita though, diving frantically for the giant, but the rope tied to his waist reeled him in just short of his goal...his hands less than a foot from Draake's fingertips.

"No!" cried two men behind Ron. They were the ones closest to him on the tether. They were pulling him back away from the still expanding sinkhole. "If he grabs you, we'll all get hauled in!"

Ron felt the heat in his face rise with his anger, but there wasn't time to argue the point. Instead, he whirled around and stuck his foot out to the desperate Benoi. Draake was sliding slowly down into the pit and blinded by the escaping steam, but when he felt Ron's boot brush his knuckles, he latched onto it like a drowning man to a life preserver.

Ron felt the extreme pressure of those digits clamp onto him like a bear trap, and immediately hoped his own skeletal structure could withstand the strain, but instead of dwelling on that, he turned to the men attached to him.

"Pull, damn you!"

They felt the abrupt tug of Draake's heavy frame and their eyes flew open wide, horrified that they were suddenly anchored to the massive fellow. Ron scrambled for traction on the crumbling, crusty surface while his teammates bent their backs into the task, but the ground would not comply. It was just too hard...baked from below into a nearly rock-hard crust with a thin layer of loose sand on top.

The men closest on the rope fell almost immediately, and the turf beneath Ron tilted even more, pulled in by the widening, still collapsing dome.

The cloud of retched steam threatened to suffocate Ron over the next few litas, and the heat was nearly unbearable and laced with an acid tinge which burned his eyes and skin. He then felt the tension on the rope increase and then decrease in rapid fashion and presumed those above were scrambling fiercely for leverage to haul him and Draake up.

"Pull!" he roared one last attempt to bolster the men, but when he squinted through the tears, he saw the nearest fellow, Bart, and his stomach tightened.

Bart was flat on the ground, head downward in the still growing cave-in, and his eyes were wide with fear.

"Pull me up!" he screamed to Fraidze, the next fellow up the rope.

Fraidze was doing all he could against the weight of Draake, Ron, and Bart's bodies, and he was fortunate that he too wasn't flat on the rock-hard turf.

Bart was scrambling to get a foothold but could not, and he was at the very edge of the sink hole. Instead of pulling on the rope, he was clawing at the ground to try and stop his inevitable slide into the pit. His hand brushed across the hilt of Draake's forgotten sword and he suddenly saw a way out.

Ron caught a quick glimpse of Bart straining to heave the five-foot-long blade off the ground, but his tearing eyes immediately blurred that scene out. He knew his teammate's only thought was to cut the rope that threatened to pull him to his death, and so he tensed.

Ron felt certain he was done. There was nothing he could do to get free, or stop the strike, so he slammed his lids shut again and waited for the dreaded feeling that would come as he was jerked into the boiling acid bath by the weight of the massive Benoi soldier.

He felt a lita slip past as he struggled merely to breathe, then two, but the fall did not come. He felt more movement on the rope, but nothing he could interpret, and the belching fog from below had engulfed him totally, so seeing was out of the question.

Another few litas ticked away while he awaited the end, and still it didn't come. That made his mind race. He wondered how Draake could still be alive farther down in that hellish hole, but his grip on Ron's ankle held firm.

Suddenly Ron felt himself surge upward a good six feet, forcing him to gasp. A moment later the burning on his flesh decreased a bit when a wonderful puff of wind blew the steam away, so he peeked out again.

Al Pope was standing up there, next to Dex and Fraidze. He had one hand on the rope and one holding Bart in the air by the neck. Draake's sword was nowhere nearby. "Get on the rope and PULL, you dragen flarge!" roared the giant before he slammed Bart back down.

The three men joined their ally on the line at that point and soon Ron felt his body moving again. He still felt the full weight of Draake's ultra-heavy figure, and it made him liken it to a full-sized car being tied to his foot...although he knew on Earth Draake would have weighed something more akin to an armored truck.

It seemed enormously slow-going from Ron's perspective, as he slid upward a few feet at a time, but barely half a bort later the group of six was reunited clear of the death hole.

Draake rolled on the ground swiftly, in obvious agony, coughing and gagging for air, but before he allowed himself time to recover, he began stripping his legs of the trousers he wore. They were wet from the pit and the burning would not stop until he was free of them. Al helped rip them off and toss them aside feeling lucky that his fellow Benoi didn't wear boots on his impregnable feet since they would have held more of the scalding acid.

Ron recovered quickly once he was out of the cloud, and he rushed to Draake's side. The thick hide of the ultra-worlder was bright red and smoking, still smoldering from his exposure to the fluid.

"We have to rinse it off!" he yelled to himself, his mind swirling.

They had no water on their persons though, and none was anywhere around that he knew of. Suddenly however, a light popped on in his mind and he leaped to his feet and began unfastening his trousers.

"Get over here...all of you!" he barked.

"What the dragen sard are you doing?" Al growled.

Draake was in obvious agony, writhing on the ground and trying to kick dirt on his legs, but that wasn't helping. He stared up at Ron through tear-drenched, nearly incoherent eyes. The panic on his face was real and dire. He was at the limit of what he could stand, but something in Ron's course of action filled him with question.

As quickly as he could, Ron began urinating on Draake's legs. The urine instantly neutralized the acid and Draake finally understood.

"Yes, yes!" Draake suddenly added his order to Ron's. "Hurry...come on!" The captain even struggled to his feet and added his own fluid to the mix, fighting a terrible burning in his lungs to get it done. Breathing in those corrosive vapors for so long had not done him any good either.

The other members of the team complied with his request, but nonetheless, they couldn't suppress some fear of retaliation from the giant for their 'less than respectful' act.

When the burning had finally subsided, Draake dropped to his hands and knees and just breathed...perfectly happy to have the sulphur-laced air to take in instead of the acid filled concoction he'd just left.

Everyone else restored their clothing and collected their things, making ready to carry on. Ron stepped to the side and kept his eyes and ears on alert, as well as his blade at the ready. He was more than certain that this would not be the last danger they would have to face.

After a few borts of coughing and wheezing, the huge Benoi warrior looked up at his saviors. Where once there were eyes colored darkly yellow with oddly shaped brown blobs at the center, they were bright red now, as if he were on the verge of crying blood. It looked horribly painful, but he could still see.

Draake then struggled weakly to his feet, and immediately did something no one saw coming.

"Itsu," he said humbly, "In this wild land where you come from...what do they call you?"

Ron thought for a moment or two, about the various names he'd been born with, inherited, and been given. He had wanted so long for the giant to call him by his real name, but he had to weigh that desire with the results of his incredible transformation, and his relatively newly found purpose. When it came right down to it, considering what each meant on the three worlds he called home, he chose the one he felt truly was the most accurate.

"They call me Ronin."

"Very well then, Ronin," he said with clear and sincere humility. "I want you to know that I thank you...and that I am honored to be your teammate."

It was so heartfelt, and took everyone by such utter surprise, that they just watched in total silence. Draake then offered his hand to Ron, as he'd seen Ron do with his fellow humans. That too was such an alien action that it held everyone's fascination for a good while. Ron accepted the offer and shook Draake's gargantuan maul, squeezing it as hard as he could and wondering if the immense fellow could even feel it.

When they separated, Draake faced his team.

"Thank you, men! Ronin...especially you, since you risked your own life so willingly. I...I would surely have died in that dragen hole if it hadn't been for you all."

The ring of hardened men heard and felt the genuine emotion in his words...something they never thought he even had...and were humbled.

Draake hung his head for one last deep round of coughs, and then he scooped up his pants by the dry part and looked about.

"I believe that Dex made a sound suggestion earlier today," he said, letting out another few coughs. "I believe Ronin would be the best choice to lead us through this challenge."

He then stepped to the side, offering the lead position to Ron.

"Alright then," Ron replied, solemnly. "First, let's get everyone tied together," he said as if they'd never had the previous conversation.

No one uttered a word of complaint or chastisement. They just quickly repositioned the safety line to accommodate the addition, and readied themselves.

"Let's move!" Ron told them without further fanfare.

### Chapter Thirty-five

### Night Terrors

From there on out, the team stayed clear of any dome-shaped areas, and tested all suspicious-looking avenues with Bart's spear.

The hot, stinking land gave way to safer ground after another few hoz and before long it turned steeper and more forest-covered. At that point, they stowed the rope and sped up.

The air was sweeter and damper in the confines of the woods, with a strong underscore of rotting vegetation, and that made Ron smile as he ran.

"This is more like it," he thought while his eyes picked out the nearly invisible signs of small game trails that crisscrossed the route the team was on. He then cast a quick remark over his shoulder. "We need to find water!"

The forest was thick enough that he couldn't see farther than a few hundred peors, but he didn't despair. The merging of the smaller animal's tracks with those of the larger ones told him he was heading in the right direction. Less than five borts later, Ron heard the gurgling of a small brook, and soon they were all splashing that liquid into the mouths and onto their heads.

Draake moved downstream a few peors and plopped down into a little catch-pool where he soaked his legs and feet and reveled in the soothing relief. He also rinsed out his trousers and splashed his whole body to clear the remaining acid from his person.

They all caught their breaths and filled their water containers before heading out with a much lighter outlook, but matching Ron's pace didn't allow them too much relaxation.

No one spoke as they ran, too strained for air to waste it, and soon Draake felt sure they were making up some of the precious time they'd lost. Ron flew along a route no one else could have possibly seen as adroitly as a running buck, and nearly as swiftly...but that lasted barely three billots.

Following a hoz-long run downhill through a beautiful, wide open meadow, the ground changed from firm and rocky to soft and green, and the next phase of the challenge arrived abruptly, bringing them all to a hurried stop.

As if someone had intentionally planted an enormous barrier, they came upon a wall of greenery that looked ominous and even frightening to those not accustomed to the wild. It was a thick, lush, jungle-like terrain that pressed back against their passage with a marked vengeance.

Al used his enormous axe to hack his way through the outer mesh, creating an avenue large enough for him (or two human men side by side) to pass. Unlike the typical jungle however, the interwoven tangle of vines, roots, and trees did not dissipate in the slightest even fifteen peors in.

That was when Ron took control again.

"Okay, men," he said when they were fully into the forest. "I'm going to scout ahead for the best route and leave you a trail...all right?"

They all nodded their agreement, but with obvious tension showing on their faces. They didn't like the idea of the only person in the group who felt at ease in the deep woods to leave them unescorted.

"Stay on a route in that direction," he said, pointing at the wall of dense verdure.

"Wait a lita!" Bart protested. "Where are you going?"

"The ground is too slow in bush this thick. I can travel much faster overhead."

They stared at him like he was insane, but when they looked up, it was easy to see what he meant. About sixty feet above the floor, the bushes gave way to the trees, and there the world became a maze of limbs and vines. It was clear that a creature with enough strength and agility could indeed make fast progress, but for a man to navigate his way in that realm, he would have to be something more than human. He would need to be part beast!

They then turned back to Ron and saw the anticipation of the challenge in his gleaming stare. He'd mapped out exactly which course he would take in mere moments...and he practically drooled.

"Draake. Would you mind giving me a boost?" Ron asked, walking over to the edge of a drape of vines that resembled a curtain of leafy green.

"What is it you want me to do?" asked the giant.

"You think you can toss me up to that large vine there?" he asked, pointing to one almost ten peors above.

Draake looked up and gauged the distance, then grunted; "Al, come and lend a hand."

Together they got Ron in position in their huge palms and on the third up-and-down motion, they sent him sailing skyward.

The rest of the team gasped at the sight, but Ron didn't flinch. Like he was an acrobat in a circus act, he just focused on his target and grabbed it with ease, swinging hand-over-hand to the first large limb.

"Anyone else coming?" Ron asked joyfully, fully engaged in the newest challenge.

Nobody volunteered to join him.

He waved down at his teammates and then he was gone, engulfed in the thick verdure.

"All right, you men!" Draake growled before yanking his immense sword free of its scabbard. "You heard him! Let's go!"

With that, the huge captain began hacking his way forward...and even though a typical sword would have been extremely inefficient for such duties, the five-feet-long, six-inch-wide blade the Benoi carried was more than enough to get through even the thickest vines...at least at first.

When the team had chopped their way a dozen more peors into the outer fringe they realized something dreadfully disheartening. The vines they were cutting through weren't all actually vines. In fact, once past the sun-drenched cover-layer where bushes and shrubs normally thrive, they found the way got even tougher, but the greenery was almost completely gone. When they stood in total shadow, Draake called to his men.

"Hold! Something is not right."

They were all breathing deeply from the exertions of the day and from clearing out the mass of debris their leader hewed into the foliage, and so they stared intently at the living mesh that seemed unending. Slowly they began to understand. A few more swings of their differing weapons revealed the density of the material wasn't the waterlogged, porous material they'd started on. This stuff was hard as Boranian ironwood.

"You gotta be kidding me!" Fraidze said out of sheer surprise, once he understood the truth. He peered deeper into the gloom and then spun all about.

What they faced was an intricately woven lattice of roots! The trees in that jungle didn't have traditional trunks spaced far apart with smaller trees in between. What they did have were enormous pads of long, slender roots that shot up a good thirty feet into the air before the main part of the tree began with a thick, tapered shaft.

Ron was high above them and had already been studying the mass of growth, having traveled a couple hundred peors forward before returning. Those interwoven plants reminded him of an Earth tree called the baobab, but here it was multiplied a million times. And there seemed to be no end to the tangled barrier. Too, the distance between the roots varied greatly, from a foot to an inch, with connecting growths equally randomly spaced. Also, once above the towering maze of wooden bars, the angle of growth was equally treacherous. One couldn't simply climb to the higher part and scale the mass. Up there the roots were coated with a naturally slippery surface, and with the gaps separating them, they were like traps designed to break an ankle or leg if someone fell into them.

Those on the ground didn't have his unique perspective however, and in fact, they couldn't see a single step in any direction that didn't involve that barrier. It seemed completely hopeless.

Draake looked to Ron for help, barely able to make him out through the living mesh.

"Is there any way we could follow you?"

"We could tie rope between the trees and get the men across, but I don't believe you Benoits could manage it. The branches thin out considerably between trunks and would never hold you. And furthermore, you might be tough enough to survive a fall from up here because of your heritage but it would be disastrous to the humans."

Draake nodded his understanding.

"That's it then," he growled. "Step back."

With a deep grunt, he just resumed his hacking, slowed now due to the new level of resistance. A slash across the top, then down each side, and then across the bottom gave the team a single stride farther, but that was all. It was grueling and exhausting, so there was a good deal of trading off the duty with Al, but it had to be done by the Ultras. The humans tried to lend a hand, and would have helped if they could, but the strength and endurance needed for such a task was literally beyond them.

Forward they trudged through the forest by sheer, brute force...plus a little guidance from above. When the team would wander astray of the course, Ron would whistle down to them and right their heading. (He tried leaving obvious signs on the route, but the bulldozer method Draake and his fellows were using just destroyed everything.)

They stopped in pairs for brief periods of rest when exhaustion was too much to endure, never fearing losing their fellows because the pace was so slow. And each man ate from his rations while on the move.

They plowed through an evening rainstorm so heavy that the spray off Al's swinging blade flew ten peors, but it actually helped lubricate the weapon and slice through the wood easier, so he didn't complain or hesitate.

Even through the night so black it felt like they were blind-folded, they fought forward. Draake saw an opportunity to out-pace the other teams and took it, hoping to reach the end of the horrible jungle with enough of a lead for a good safety margin. He doubted even the powerful Kreete soldiers could hope to keep up with him and Al.

The team pressed forward through their second midday mealtime, but finally called a halt when the sun dipped low in the sky once more. They couldn't tell where it was from their vantage point, of course, but the light fading quickly was a definitive sign.

Draake was about to make camp in the confines of the root-tunnel they'd hacked out when Al saw something that made him stop his arduous work and shake his head.

"I don't believe it!" he grunted, before surging forward the final ten peors.

Ron welcomed them with a blazing fire and half a buck roasting over it in a small clearing made of smooth, barren rock outcrop. It was the first break in the hellish tangle since they'd started, and it even had a narrow view of the open sky.

Ron looked rested and refreshed, having already eaten and taken a nice plunge in a nearby little river, so he was in an excellent mood.

"Anybody hungry?" he asked cheerily.

Fraidze and Dex grinned, but the others were too hot, tired, and beaten down from the arduous trek to return his greeting.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, mister monkey-man," Fraidze said. "It must be nice skittering up in the trees all day instead of chopping through this dragen brush for every step."

"You're all welcomed to join me anytime," Ron replied eagerly...knowing none would.

There were several sarcastic and profane comments after that, but when they'd all eaten and refreshed themselves, they felt enormously grateful for his woodsman skills. The fire too was a soothing luxury as the sunset gave way to a nighttime sky that was almost pitch black under the canopy of the trees.

"Say," Dex said while he was lounging on the ground staring up at the few stars he could see, "how do you suppose Ron got that buck here?"

His question started the others thinking and they all quickly searched around for an obvious avenue of egress. There was none. Then they glanced up into the trees and Bart said; "You think he..." and pointed upward.

"No dragen way!" Fraidze replied. "You see the size of that thing? He must have..."

"What," Al interjected, "killed it here? That would be quite convenient, don't you think?"

"Yeah!" Dex joined in. "And how could it have even gotten here. It couldn't fit through that mess."

That left them all in wonder again, and so they drew silent.

Suddenly the high-pitched scream of a wild animal made every head whip around and grip their weapons tightly...all except Ron. He had just returned to the camp, scaling down the mesh barrier like it was a ladder.

He stopped in mid stride, but merely tilted his head a bit and listened intently. The creature was at least a couple hoz away and up wind. If it were hunting, they were not the prey. After a few moments Ron continued forward smoothly.

Everyone else relaxed when they saw him turn away casually and approach their group.

"How do you think we are doing, Ronin?" Draake asked after gulping down a huge bite of the roasted meal.

Ron took a seat in the circle his teammates had formed about the fire.

"It's hard to say really. I can't tell exactly how far the others have come. I can only find those on either side of us, but those two are well behind. The rest would be just a guess. Of those that travel like you, I think we are safely in the lead. However, if they travel like me, then they would be."

"What about the Lords?" Fraidze inquired, knowing that they were the only opponents that truly mattered.

"Well, I can't be certain of course, but with their size and weight, and knowing that they are far from the most agile humanoids around, I don't see how they could move through the canopy. My guess is that they are forging their way through the roots as well."

He then looked at Draake directly and added, "But they have seven men who can swing a heavy axe, and we have only two."

Draake didn't take offense at the inference, but he felt the loss of Brome sharply. "It is what it is," he finally muttered.

"Where did you get the beast we just ate?" Al asked to change the subject, and also to confirm his earlier presumption.

"The forest turns normal a few hoz farther ahead," he answered lightly, as if it were only a short walk down an open lane. "There is plenty of game in it."

"You mean to tell me that you carried that huge animal all the way here...a few hoz...up there?" Dex asked in total awe.

Ron merely shrugged. "How else?"

"How'd you kill it?" Bart then queried, mentally comparing his own woodsman skills to the infamous Shartae. "You don't have a bow."

Ron just patted the blade on his hip affectionately. "I waited above a large game trail until that poor creature strolled by...then I dropped down next to it."

He said it with such ease that anyone listening would have assumed a child could've done it.

"Okay, Ron," Fraidze finally said, "what I really want to know is how much more of this dragen hell do we have?"

Ron smiled a tight, tense smile. "I can tell you that you have at least another several billots of it at the pace you're making."

That brought moans from nearly everyone.

"It will be smooth sailing after that though, at least for the next ten hoz or so. That's as far as I got before coming back to set up camp."

"You said if they traveled like you, a team would be far ahead. How fast could you go without us holding you back?" Dex asked.

Ron just grinned back. "Fast."

"Enough!" Draake broke in. "Worrying about what another team might be doing does not help us. We must rest."

"I'm all for that," Dex chimed in.

"We need to set up watches for the night," Al said. "Two billots per shift should do."

Ron was beside the dying fire, wondering if he should stoke it or let it smolder, when a strange sound forced his head to snap up and around to face the south. The clearing ended barely fifty feet away in the wall of tangle of roots, but from above and behind it he detected something odd out there...something new. The night creatures' calls had taken on a distinct, panicked reaction to something. And whatever it was, it swept through the forest under the canopy...and it was closing fast!

The others in the camp hadn't seen his reaction though, and unfortunately he was concentrating too hard to give a proper warning.

"All right then," Bart replied, standing up to move toward the fire. He then caught Ron's expression and turned to face the same direction, mildly curious.

"What is that?" Ron's mind queried as he stretched out his senses to their very limits.

It was a strange, dull sound, like a gust of air blowing through the leaves, but muffled. A lita later, his straining ears made out a noise that sounded much like a terry-cloth towel being briskly unfurled before folding.

"Oh shit!" his brain screamed when it decoded the meaning of that message...wings!

"I'll take the first wa..." Bart was saying just then.

"GET DOWN!" Ron ordered at him, dropping low himself.

Before the words could get out though, a dark shape swooped in from the blackness overhead and slammed into Bart's face with tremendous force. It knocked him completely off his feet and his body landed without a hint of life left in it.

Ron leaped to his feet in a blink, and his blade was even faster, whipping out of its sheath like it was spring loaded. And it's a good thing too because the next creature was barely half a dozen feet from him and moving in a dark blur.

Ron reacted with the speed and precision of the world-class swordsman he was, the tip of his machete` snapping up in front of his face to meet the incoming threat with full malice. He braced himself as best he could without knowing exactly what to expect, and caught the beast solidly between the eyes. Its body slammed against the finely edged armament with enough momentum to cleave it almost completely in two, and its fangs stopped barely three inches from Ron's forehead.

Those deadly looking devices were easily four inches long and spaced perfectly to penetrate his eye sockets. It was no wonder that Bart had died so instantaneously.

Ron flicked the creature away as quickly as he could and then scanned the small clearing in a nonstop spiral. The other members of the team were now in defensive postures as well and two more of the creatures lay dead or wounded on the ground.

A moment later Ron heard the slightest rustle of wings brushing leaves behind him and whirled about in time to intercept the next beast streaking at him as a new wave of the giant bats attacked. The heavy blade Ron gripped whirled around like a fencer's foil and struck the airborne threat just behind the head, decapitating it instantly. A moment later, Ron was once more poised for battle, the gore-smeared machete`` whizzing through the air like a giant Cuisinart as two more threats flashed down at him from the night. They did not escape his mincing blade.

Al Pope had dispatched the one feeding on Bart by then, hacking it in two with his broad axe, and then took out a pair of them in an incredible maneuver that exhibited the full speed of the mighty Ultras.

One creature appeared barely three feet in front of him at the edge of the forest, and another was closing on Fraidze as he was sidestepping a third. Al's blade flashed across his wide body and through the nearest bat before he continued the blazing move by flinging the axe in a tremendous flick of his massive wrist.

That weapon...two and a half feet wide from blade-edge to blade-edge...whirled across ten feet of space and halved the other beast before it reached its target...Fraidze' upper back.

Fraidze was facing away from Al and only heard the deep 'thunk' of the heavy axe-head sinking into a nearby stump before he felt a wet splat against his neck. It was the creature's guts striking where its fangs certainly would have.

Fraidze dropped to a crouch instantly and wiped the thick goo from his neck while his frantic eyes swept the small camp over and over. Al flashed past him to retrieve his weapon and Fraidze had to blink twice before accepting that such a huge individual could be so blindingly quick.

"What the dragen sark are those things?" Dex screamed as three more winged terrors soared into view.

Dex took out one with his dulchira in a fantastic, buzz-saw maneuver that gutted the beast in mid-flight, and Draake sliced through another with the tip of his flashing broadsword.

"We should retreat into the protection of the roots!" Fraidze suggested while combing the surroundings with his eyes. "They won't attack where they cannot fly."

"No!" Al returned forcefully, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Draake then tried a different approach. He snatched one last intruder right out of a gap in the foliage where it perched, peering at the clearing from cover. He held it tightly in his left hand while it squirmed frantically for freedom.

"I have seen these creatures before," he proclaimed, "on the planet Louch. "They are Louchine wolf-bats! They are as cunning and agile on foot as they are in the air, and when they tuck there wings in they can fit through a gap as small as my fist. That is how they negotiate the tangle of the limbs in their native realm. The roots here would provide us no protection. In fact, it would aid them because we would have no room to swing our weapons to fight.

He then paused a moment, still staring at the bat with intense scrutiny.

"They are silent and efficient killers...and these have been specifically trained to hunt humans."

"What?" Dex chirped while trying to stare through the veil of night all around them. "Why do you say that?"

"Their typical source of food is the deep-forest monkeys of their homeworld. They use their fangs to get to the brains of the monkeys, you see. It is their only form of sustenance. The humans on that world do not fear them because the animals do not typically attack them. It has something to do with the flavor, I assume. Another interesting fact is that the bats are normally pair-bonded and hunt only with their mates...never in large groups like this."

With the fight over for the moment, the Outcasts could clearly hear other battles being waged on both sides. Screams and frantic shouts echoed across the landscape in a garbled miss-mash of sounds.

Draake held the bat closer to the fire and it went berserk.

"The light is painful to their eyes, you see, so their trainer has done some remarkable conditioning to get them to attack us like this. It is my suggestion that we create a circle of fire and retreat into the center of it. They cannot look into the bright light, so they will not be able to see us."

"I'll wager they were starved and taught to search for food at campsites like ours," Ron surmised, "to make the Games more interesting."

"Yes, that is likely true," the giant agreed, "but once the draw is gone...when they can perceive no more prey...they should go back to their original methods of hunting. They usually stay in the upper canopy and rarely go all the way to the ground. That is where their natural predators on their world lurk and hunt. More evidence of their intense training. "

The team then quickly divided into two groups, those standing guard and those hunting for burnable material. At least they had plenty of that in the path they'd cleared through the roots. It wasn't long before they had the fire going strong again and they eventually lit five more to form a rough perimeter, one that still allowed egress to gather more tinder. When that was complete, they returned to their original plan of trying to rest. Of course that was easier said than done.

"I will stand guard tonight," Ron volunteered. "I am the most rested."

"Turn your faces down so you don't present an easy target," Draake instructed. "Place your packs over your necks. That is the secondary attack point they use."

The men didn't like being put in such a vulnerable position, but they were exhausted to the point of not caring anymore, so they complied.

With the packs covering them, the light from the fire wasn't quite so bright either, so at first they thought they would sleep...but they soon found that rest would not be so easy.

Over the next billot, Ron kept the fires high and there were no more attacks, but screams continued to fill the dark night with bone-rattling frequency. Some were distant and so not too bad, but others made the men jump awake from the horrendous terror they were laced with.

Fraidze and Dex felt like they'd go mad if it kept up much longer, but when they vocalized their dissatisfaction, Draake simply told them to "Shut your whining holes!"

After that, the thought of dealing with Draake instead of their fears was an easy choice. They had no recourse other than to persevere in silence. The Benoits on the other hand, slept through the rest of the night without even twitching.

Ron stayed vigilant as ever and was certain he heard at least two more of the bats swoop through the camp. However, they didn't drop below about fifteen feet, so he grew more and more confident that Draake's plan had actually worked.

Ron relaxed after a while too, but stayed on his feet, too intent on listening to the sounds of the forest to even get drowsy. There were hundreds of alien calls to study and decipher, and his curiosity was boundless. He had the urge to go out into the darkness and explore again, but felt if the others awoke and he was gone they might panic. It wasn't worth the chance, and he had done quite a bit of exploration on the previous night anyway.

After things settled down and everyone was sleeping soundly, he heaved Bart's corpse onto his shoulder and forged into the woods, heading back down the trail they'd so arduously created. After a good hundred peors, he laid the body down and did what he could to mask the scent. Unfortunately, aside from a thorough burial of at least four feet of earth, which he could not accomplish without proper tools, he knew the denizens of the night would surely find it. His efforts were designed to merely put some distance between those scavengers and his still living teammates.

He truly hated to do it, but necessity was a demanding companion. And it wasn't like he was casting the fellow haphazardly aside to save himself and the others in a shallow show of self-preservation either...this was wild country. He surmised a good amount, but 'knew' almost nothing of the animals that roamed these lands, other than what their tracks looked like...but one thing was certain; they had a tremendous advantage out there. All he could really do was try to prepare for some recognizable threat...and the obvious scent of a dead body was one of them.

Luckily the remainder of the night passed without further interruption.

### Chapter Thirty-six

### Water is Not Our Friend

Day 3:

When the star's glow began to build in the east, Ron awakened the team. He was drained from the long vigil, but one night's lost sleep wasn't that much to overcome so he merely shrugged it off. He'd gone much longer in the past.

The newly stirred team members were nervous, surly, and quiet as they gathered themselves for the day's trials, but happy to be leaving the camp behind them.

No one spoke of Bart, but he was clearly on each of their minds.

By the time Ureseth (Jarhress's sun) had peeked over the horizon, the Outcasts were well on their way once more. They were back in the shrouded gloom of the dense roots, and back in the monotonous yet efficient rhythm they'd previously developed.

Their spirits rose with the sun though, and by mid-morning they had packed away the terror of the previous night in the back of their minds and filled the front with their current ordeal...the dense forest. It was unfathomable to understand how the canopy could be so thick, yet the floor level still produce such an unyielding obstruction to their passage.

Draake didn't want to stop for lunch, feeling that the Benoits resigned mode of travel was holding the team back, but the grueling manner they utilized to move forward wore even them down quickly.

When the sun was just passing its apogee in the sky however, Draake let out a long howl that got everyone's attention.

"Look!" he cried at the startled men.

He could see sunlight reflecting off the broken surface of water! It was a wide stream that was a clear demarcation of a change in the landscape, and that made them smile. They had finally reached an end of the hellish verdure.

Ten borts later, they broke through the last of it and gazed with open wonder at their deliverance.

Fifty peors across, the creek was shallow, clear, and fast moving...and every man immediately fell to their knees and splashed the cool water on their faces or dunked their heads in it. It was absolute heaven.

As they waded across it a few borts later, they also got their first good look in almost two solid days at the green-tinged sky stretching out above them. And then they felt the welcoming caress of a strong, cool breeze blowing along the water. It was too tempting to pass up so they decided to take a break on the far bank.

"Your finally free from the tree roots," Ron announced to the group after they'd slumped wearily to the ground...startling each team member in varying degrees.

"Holy dragen fire ants!" Dex exclaimed, jerking around and grabbing his weapon like everyone else had. "You scared the sark out of me!"

"There's a fair-sized game trail about a hoz from this stream," Ron continued, ignoring their agitated state, "so you won't have to hack your way along anymore. It follows our route pretty well for the next three hoz...but then there's a new problem."

"What kind of 'problem'?" Draake asked after he'd seated himself once more.

"The ground gets steep...," Ron replied, "really steep!"

"Great!" Fraidze moaned.

Ron gave them a rundown of what he'd seen out front of the team while they munched on their rations. It was much too quick a meal for the humans, but Draake wasn't one to rest for long, so they were on their way again shortly.

Ron stayed grounded at that point and raced out ahead of the group as a guide because even though he saw the avenue clearly, it wasn't as obvious to some as he'd led them to believe. However, they were past the back-breaking ordeal of the roots, so no one uttered a word of complaint.

After another billot of fast jogging, they reached the area Ron had spoken of...their next real obstacle. It was a deep ravine with a fast-flowing river at the bottom. The sides were two hundred feet of sheer rock, a treacherous enough climb for Ron and the other human members, but the team's massive leaders were another story. It would be impossible to tell if the cliffs would hold them until it was too late. That's when they began unfurling the lengths of heavy rope they each carried.

It didn't take long to figure out that the forest's edge was too far away from the lip of the gorge to allow them to tie off to the trees. In fact, as they scouted around for something...anything...to anchor their lines to, they wondered if the Kreete hadn't intentionally removed such aids from the land to make it more challenging and dangerous.

Eventually Al and the men lowered Draake down the cliff, and then the three men eased Al down. It was nerve-racking, having no option other than to chance it with only the humans to act as safety support, but he had no real issues. That method continued until only one man was left. The last person down was Ron, who seemed to have no fear of the task whatsoever. As soon as Dex touched the ground beside his teammates, Ron tossed aside the rope and climbed down on his own. It was a strenuous and dangerous adventure that gave him more than one gut-clenching moment, but he made his way in short order.

The river was the next hurdle. From above, the water was so clear they all thought it was a narrow and fairly shallow, fast moving stream, but now they found it was much deeper and wider than they'd guessed. It wasn't rapids, but by the way the smooth surface cracked and roiled, they could tell it was above normal flow. The Benoits couldn't swim at all on this world, and the quarter-hoz-wide stretch of turbulent liquid suddenly threatened to be an impassable obstacle.

"It would appear that we are to remain here," suggested Draake. "Al and I could never negotiate that without some kind of floatation aid," he added indicating the river. "And none were provided."

"No," Dex replied. "The rules are clear. At least four members must cross the finish, or the time continues to accumulate. And now there are only three humans. At least one of you must make it!"

"We have everything we need to complete the challenge," Ron added, taking a long drink from his water bladder before dumping it out. "Empty your containers!"

The other troops did as he directed, since they could easily refill them now, but were obviously perplexed...at least until they saw him blowing air into his. At that point they all got the idea and before long they had six good-sized balloons.

After cutting tie-cords from a section of their braided rope, they had two sets of water-wings constructed, and immediately put them to use. Draake slipped into the river's edge and tested out the buoyancy issue. It was worse than they'd hoped for. It would take both sets of the wings to support him, which meant that the Benoits would have to go over one at a time, and then someone would have to bring the "floaties" back across to be used by the other.

Ron took point again and eased into the water. With Jarhress being much weightier than Caron, he knew he'd be fine, so he tied himself to Draake with another length of rope and headed out, willing to tow the heavier being to help speed up the transport.

They were out only a hundred feet or so however, before something grazed across Draake's bare legs. A few litas later he felt another, and then many more. He was kicking as well as he could, but the water was simply not viscous enough to allow him to propel himself through it with any efficiency to speak of. In fact, if it weren't for Ron's tow line, he'd be barely moving at all. As it was, the unknown creatures didn't frighten him, his skin being too tough for the average animal to penetrate, but he couldn't help but wonder about their intent, and what they might do to his tug.

"Ronin!" he shouted to Ron, thirty feet ahead of him.

Ron was smooth as an Olympic distance swimmer, using long, powerful strokes with minimum effort and almost no splash. "Yeah?"

"There is some kind of animals in the water! I can't tell what they are...ouch! SHART! Something just bit me!"

Ron heard his warning, and his panic, but merely kept on with his chore. There was little he could do to avoid whatever they were, and just hoped they weren't as dangerous as he feared. Visions of thousands of piranha fish instantly began to flash across his mind nonetheless, lending to the image of a ghastly, agonizing death. Those visions forced his heart-rate to climb, but he managed to squelch the feeling of anxiousness with focus on completing his task, hoping to make it to the far bank before things got scary.

At halfway across unfortunately, Ron began to see the dark flashes of some aquatic creatures racing by him too, and he inwardly tensed, but they didn't accost him. Draake on the other hand was getting more and more frantic.

"Faster," he yelled while thrashing the water with even more fervor than before.

Onward Ron swam, churning the water hard, but still with little splash because his hips were so low due to the constant tug of his charge. Several more of the creatures came tearing by, and even bumped into him on the legs and torso, but didn't bite. He was thankful yet cautious about the reasons for that.

One concern that he kept fresh in his mind...and overrode his worry about the creatures...was the fact that he and his partner were drifting downstream fairly quickly, despite his best efforts to keep that from happening. He couldn't be sure, but he felt they had to be running out of room for their eighth-hoz-wide safety margin, and mentally berated himself for not starting farther upstream.

At three quarters across, Ron heard the initial warning of his encroachment of the invisible barrier. It was a series of underwater chimes...seven in quick succession. Draake heard it too and for a few moments he forgot about the attacking beasts and put more effort into his swimming. The animals continued nipping away at him all the more though, which sent greater and greater amounts of his blood into the green-tinted river, attracting even more of them.

The thin air of the planet grew harder to process for the great Benoi and before long his movements were more like flailing than swimming, increasing Ron's burden.

The chimes soon started clanging five pulses, and then dropped to four, and then three. They were rapidly running out of room. At one, those in violation would be terminated, and the two swimmers didn't need to look but could perceive the hovering robotic sentinels moving into position above them.

Totally oblivious to the two in the water, their teammates were screaming warnings like mad men, certain that their best members were about to meet their demise right in front of them with nothing they could do about it.

Ron was huffing loudly, his lungs burning from the strain, but he maintained his strokes as well as he could. Two chimes began ringing in his ears with only a hundred feet to go, and he increased his beat to that of a champion sprinter. His drive to survive did spur an extra bit of adrenaline into his blood to overcome the numbness his leaden limbs were feeling, but he didn't know if it would be enough.

At twenty feet from the shore, Ron heard the twin beat drop one last time, and he tensed for the blast...but instead, his burden unexpectedly released its hold on him and he darted away like a torpedo to the safety of the rocky bank.

When his fingers at last wrapped around a large, jagged, solid boulder, Ron looked back with a heavy heart. All their planning, their sacrifice, and their dreams of freedom were for naught. He had failed! Draake was gone! The giant, unstoppable hulk from the most physically superior race he'd met so far had fallen to the most basic, fundamental certainty of biology; to survive, you must have air.

Ron caught sight of a few of the water creatures racing toward him and managed to roll his body clear of the water before lying still on his back, his chest heaving from exhaustion. The bright teal-green sky was breathtaking above him, but he couldn't even enjoy the magnificent sight. Another of his team was go...

Suddenly though, from the edge of his peripheral vision, Ron witnessed a bulging form leap out of the river, gasping and sputtering with water flying all around for a good twenty peors. He sprang to his feet to face this new attack, but just as quickly realized that defense was not necessary.

When the tidal surge dropped away suddenly, he saw just what the cause of it was...the massive Benoi captain, Draake Tarbold...and he was carrying six of the river creatures on his body, clamped securely to him at different locations.

Ron stared at those animals as Draake staggered forward, his chest heaving even harder than Ron's. They appeared to be mammalian, but since Ron hadn't seen a single one come up for air, he assumed they breathed through some sort of gill network. They had fur that resembled otters, but their four legs were more fish-like and had longer, hooked claws. Their mouths hinged at both sides and held long, needle-like teeth built for ripping flesh.

When Draake reached the ankle-deep shallows he dropped prone and rolled on the rocks to crush three of them while Ron ripped his huge blade free and beheaded two more. The final attacker met with the powerful digits of the Benoi and fell lifeless to the smooth stones a moment later. It was followed immediately by Draake's own immense body, although he lay there panting and recovering instead of decomposing.

"I thought...that you were...dead!" Ron huffed.

"Cut loose...when...chime...sounded. Crawled...out!"

Ron saw dozens of tears in the big man's exposed skin, and even more in his clothing. Whatever those water animals were, they were remarkably vicious.

Ron allowed himself only a bort or two before getting to his feet and surveying the area. This side of the river was littered with boulders, obviously from the crumbling cliff less than fifty peors away. It would be a treacherous climb to gain the summit, but not impossible.

Next he took a look around at the shoreline and noticed the churning, roiling water next to the Benoi, where his blood still leaked into the river. The disturbance wasn't from the natural eddies of rocks and hidden pockets however, it was from the creatures. They were driven frantic, like chum did for sharks.

Why had he been spared while the nearly impregnable form of Draake was attacked?

"They are wreep-rats from my homeworld," Draake growled, seeing Ron's intense scrutiny of the animals. He was breathing more normally by then, and rolled to lie on his side. "They were no doubt put in here at the suggestion...or more likely the request of the Kreete! Normally, they feed on anything in their realm, but I suppose in this case my scent was too tempting to resist...so they came after me."

That sparked an idea in Ron's mind.

"Do you think this is all of them?"

"Perhaps, but there is no way to know for sure. Why?"

"Well, if you could somehow keep them milling around here, maybe we could get the others across."

"I get it! Sure! They are attracted to splashing and the scent of their prey, so I think I can get most of them rounded up, especially with the wounds I have."

"Okay then. You stay here and I'm going to put as much distance between you and me as I can, and then get the others moving."

Draake nodded his approval and sat at the edge of the water, letting his bloody legs dangle in the river to bait the wreep-rats.

Ron then jogged as close to the northern boundary as he dared. When he reached the upstream point where the fourth chime was sounding, he eased back into the water and started across. It was much easier to haul just the 'floaties', and so he made quick work of it. He felt a nudge out in the river only once, but couldn't tell if it was a rat or just a harmless fish. It really didn't matter.

He hastily informed the others of their plans and hooked two humans up to Al.

"Look!" shouted Al who was staring upstream, trying to see if anyone else was struggling with the crossing.

There were two odd-looking forms headed downstream fairly near the shoreline, so Ron moved closer. When they got within twenty peors, and the six-chime warning sound began, he tossed out a good-sized rock tied to a light cord and hooked the first one. When it was almost within reach he saw that it was two water bladders inflated as they'd done, and tied together. But when he tugged it to the beach, he had to jump back. The mass rolled over to reveal at least a dozen wreep-rats feasting on the remains of a Canusian woman...one of only three teams that included females on their squads.

Ron beat the rats off her and dragged her body out of their reach. It was truly gut-wrenching to see any person so violated, but he merely clenched his stomach and cut the corpse free of the floats...and then prepared for the next one. That one was a man, and he was in much the same condition. Al and Ron took the remains further up the shoreline to keep them from being scavenged, and laid them out as respectfully as they could. Then they returned their attention to their own dilemma.

Five borts later, Ron was headed back across the river following Fraidze and Dex who were towing Al. He warned the heavy-worlder about what Draake had told him, so Al kept his motions to a gentle, almost splash-less entry, digging deep to help as much as he could.

His teammates weren't strong swimmers though, so Ron pushed the huge Benoi as hard as he could from behind. That being the case, he was feeling the strain again before halfway across, and the numbness was returning by three quarters, but luckily Draake was alert. He threw a rope out to them as soon as he could reach, and hauled them ashore before the six-chime boundary was reached.

Draake met them at the rocky landing and forcibly carried Ron's exhausted figure to a place near the cliff face where he lay him down on the single grassy spot he could find. Ron tried to deny the aid, but was over the big fellow's shoulder before he had a chance. Once prone again though, he was more than willing to lie still for a while and let the others figure out the next step.

It was Draake who took control of that task. He pulled out his sword and broke the weapon down by removing the huge, double-sided hand-guard. Next he collected the axe from Al and demonstrated a function no-one else knew about. The odd design of the hilt of each weapon allowed for them to link together to form a crude umbrella shape...the shape of a grappling hook. Everyone was surprised to see that work, but even more to see what he did with it.

Al tied the rope to the single exposed handle and then gave it back to his leader. The enormous Benoi slowly strolled along the cliff, staring up at its rocky face, until...

"There!" Al shouted.

Draake grunted his acceptance and then began whirling the improvised device around and around. When it was a literal blur to those watching, Draake suddenly dropped his shoulder and whipped it upward, sending the three edged contraption straight up. There was an outward jutting shelf of rock about eighty feet above him, and the four-pronged mace shot up and over it, settling solidly onto it after ricocheting off the stone bluff.

Some careful tugging wedged the odd-looking tool into a fissure and locked it tightly. Two quick tugs and Draake was on his way. The shelf was relatively small, so he ordered everyone to stay put until he'd repeated the maneuver twice more and stood atop the rim. At that time he anchored the device once more and called them up.

For all the time it took to cross and recross the river to get the Benoits safely beyond that obstacle, Draake made up for it there. The team members were each in excellent shape and climbing the rope would have been no great chore, but with the mighty captain hauling away, it was almost as good as an elevator. Ron was the last man in line and fairly flew up the cliff with a broad grin on his face.

Once atop the precipice, he carefully scanned the horizon to the left and then to the right, but couldn't see far enough to gauge their place in the meet. His vision was too obscured by trees and hills. It didn't matter anyway he concluded. They were moving as fast as they could and seeing their position really wouldn't assist them.

"Ronin," Draake called out. "We're in your realm once more. Move as fast as you dare and leave us a trail we can follow."

Ron nodded his understanding while he took a quick survey of the landscape, and then he hunted for the highest point of his allotted course. He adjusted his senses to the maximum state of wariness once more...tuning out the clatter and rumble of his followers...and set off at a good jogging pace. Since the elevation wasn't too high, even the Benoits would be able to keep up comfortably.

The land they traversed was rugged, and at times treacherous, but by late evening Ron was climbing the highest tree on the highest peak, and that gave him a fantastic view of the course.

Off to the northeast he spotted two separate teams. One was the Destroyers. The other was the Freitaries. The Kreete were slightly ahead, but not by much...and they only had six members left. Ron smiled.

"Maybe those bats or the wreep-rats were good for something! If it was their leaders who'd ordered those awful creatures, it looks like it backfired on them."

Closer in, the Freitaries were at least a billot behind, just having left the edge of the cliff. They were moving very slowly, with one limping badly, supported by another. Their group was down to four.

To the southwest, the Sharroes were climbing the hills and moving well, still strong and swift. They were down only one member as well, but Ron made a mental note that they were racing forward recklessly. Were they gambling there were no predators to worry about, or just ignorant of such things?

Farther in that direction, he could see no other group. They were either well ahead, which he doubted, or still negotiating the cliff. All the others were too far away.

Ron got his bearings and then scampered down the tree like a man-sized Capuchin. When he hit the ground, his team was there.

"The way is up that draw and through a narrow pass that looks pretty steep. We won't know what's after that until we crest it. I'll run ahead and mark the way like so," he said, stripping a small, narrow sliver of bark from the tree. The inner wood was bright white and easily visible.

"Alright?"

They each acknowledged the plan before Ron turned and blasted into the thick verdure, leaving them jogging in his wake.

Draake had long since accepted that even though he was a much weaker species, Ron had gifts that were exceedingly useful. Speed and agility were two of them, but also his intellect was impressive. He could think around problems as well as anyone he'd ever met, and that was saying something for his five-hundred-cycles of life.

They ran until the night was too dark to continue their fast pace, and then paused for a breather. Ron was somewhere up ahead, but Fraidze wasn't built for running and so was panting hard and sweating profusely. The Benoits remained in relatively good shape...their heavy-worlder physique and exceptional lung capacity aiding them well.

Fraidze wanted to apologize for holding the team up, but was too winded to say the words.

"Don't worry, my friend," Dex consoled him. "Everyone here has limits too. I myself could outrun even Ron out on an open field, but in this terrain I cannot match him. There is just no way to keep a decent stride."

"He's right," Al added. "Just a few billots ago, you men had to tow us across the water to keep the team going. We all have faults and weaknesses, and we have only made it this far because our group is diverse...yet united."

Draake even gave him a pat on the shoulder...his own gruff way of concurring with Al's sentiment.

That made Fraidze feel immensely better, just knowing where he stood amongst the team, and allowed him to recover without guilt.

After he had his breath again, and they'd all taken a long drink from their water bladders, they received an abrupt shock when a head fairly burst from the dark woods.

"This way!" Ron instructed, waving for them to follow.

"Holy dragen monkey piss," Fraidze hissed, "would you please stop doing that?"

Another few borts brought them to the entrance of a fair-sized cave where Ron disappeared again. The group followed him in slowly, adjusting to the nearly tangible darkness less quickly than him.

"I found this little hideaway waiting for us," Ron told them and then struck the butt of his machete` on a stone, producing a large spark. (He'd discovered the base of his handgrip was constructed of a flint-like substance when he accidentally brushed harshly against the rock wall during his initial survey of the area.) Merely litas later a flashing blaze ignited some tinder and swiftly propagated to a pile of twigs and dried bark he'd assembled.

The roof of the cave was sloped nicely, so when the fire started, the smoke drifted up and out easily. It was the perfect sanctuary for their weary team and the others quickly gathered round the prospective boon.

"We should gather as much wood as we can," Ron suggested to Draake when all were circling the tiny blaze.

"Why? The night is not that cold on this world."

"No, but it would be extremely fortunate, would it not, if this area was devoid of aggressive beasts...especially when we are at our most vulnerable state?"

They were all bone-tired and didn't want to go foraging, but they thought about that comment for a few moments nonetheless.

"Too," Ron added as he constantly scanned the blackness all around, "I can feel there is something not right in this place."

"Like what?" Fraidze asked while peering into the gloom of the night. Heavy dew was beginning to settle and could be seen as a fine, drifting mist.

"I don't know, but the animals on this side of the gorge have been unusually quiet...as if some unknown menace has invaded their territory."

"Maybe it's us," Dex offered.

Ron just shook his head. "That's a possibility, I suppose...but I don't think so."

His inner warning was a constant, bothersome tremor...like a spider's web vibrates with the squirming of a newly captured victim.

"This trial has been unusually easy thus far," Al added. "I fully expected we would have lost another of our team by now...and we probably would have if not for Ronin...so his suspicions seem warranted."

Draake looked out into the wilderness, where the twilight was turning deep purple. He saw no reason to fear, but too, the wild little human had been remarkably competent at evaluating similar situations.

"Very well, everyone get out there and gather what you can quickly."

"And stay out of the tree-line!" Ron added.

Ten borts of furious scrounging rewarded them with a huge stack of light to medium-sized limbs and sticks. At the last, Ron hacked down several green bushes and leafy limbs from nearby trees and stacked them on the other side of the cave entrance as well.

"We will sleep in shifts," Draake announced. "The nighttime here is thirteen billots long, so we each have a three billot duty time. I will take the first watch."

They all made a good meal of their rations and then settled in for the night. The cave was small for their group, with the Benoits taking up so much room, but the trials of the past few days had spent their energy badly, so it was easy to sleep.

The only way to judge the time was by watching the planet's smallest moon rising in the heavens. It was a good-sized satellite and its rotation cycle was approximately once every billot, so as long as the sky was clear, it would aid them.

During the third round of watch, Fraidze sat at the mouth of the cave with his eyes drooping heavily, wishing to retreat back to the warmer area nearer the fire. The night air was moist and damp, and he was feeling a chill even though the temperature was far from frigid.

He looked up at the moon and saw the revolution was nearly complete, but the boredom was too much and his chin gently rested on his crossed forearms. One more long blink and his eyes didn't reopen.

### Chapter Thirty-seven

### Terror Hounds

"Splat," suddenly sounded out in the night, resonating off the stone walls with the announcement of something heavy and wet striking the side of the cave.

It was the head of some dark beast.

Its body slammed into Fraidze at high enough speed to roll him across the natural granite floor harshly and rouse him thoroughly. He came to in mid-motion and was instantly disoriented, having been violently expelled from his previous sitting position as sentry.

"What the...?" he grunted as he tumbled.

Next came the sounds of many padded feet on the hard ground, approaching fast...then the metal chime of hardened steel striking bone, and a high pitched squeal of surprise and pain. And behind all that racket came a low, rumbling growl. It reverberated as deeply as a full grown gorilla and sent shivers up the spines of the now rapidly waking team members.

Ron Allison was on the move! He'd decapitated some charging animal before it could reach the dozing guard, and immediately whirled about to stop its partner from gaining entry.

Fraidze's body eventually stopped its tumble on the belly of Al, who jumped away with a powerful start, thinking he was under attack. He very nearly cleaved Fraidze's head in two before realizing who he was.

"Wait...wait!" Fraidze cried as he saw the giant's axe blade glinting in the firelight. "It's only me!"

They then turned to the mouth of the cave and watched Ron struggling with something that flopped and writhed in a maddening display of death throws. It was some kind of animal, at least as big as a man, but it was covered in purple blood and moving too fast for the men to get a good look at. Ron was astride its back and his blade was sunk to the hilt in the creature...and he was hanging on like a Pit-bull Terrier.

A few moments later, the beast's movements slowed dramatically and he finally got a good hold of it. He then spun about violently and slung the mortally wounded creature bodily from the cave.

At that point the night erupted with a bone-chilling cry that stirred everyone in the cave as well as four other teams within earshot.

The call to battle from the Aredanz Champion ripped through the air with an almost physical presence...and ended up saving four others' lives.

"What is it?" five voices called at once, each laying bare their steel and rushing to the entrance.

"Stoke the fire!" Ron growled over his shoulder. "We're under attack!"

The lower bushes that lined the edge of the forest then began to shake. Growls rolled out of the leaves in waves and the sound funneled its way into the cave where it sounded like an entire army of animals. Then the snouts and bared teeth of the threat pushed through. There were easily a dozen creatures closing in from the dark fringe of the light the campfire provided.

"Terror hounds!" Draake said solemnly.

Those beasts were from the Kreete's homeworld and were seldom seen outside of it...at least by living individuals. They were used for hunting and subduing high profile targets through rough terrain or harsh environments. They traveled in packs and coordinated their attacks through a complicated language of barks, whistles, and snorts.

The "hounds" weren't what humans would call canine though. They had no familiar features that resembled dogs or wolves of any breed. The name was given to them because of their tenacious nature of hounding their prey relentlessly until caught. Too, they had six legs and claws more resembling cats' than dogs', but they weren't feline either.

Their bodies were broad and long, even looking decidedly flat from a distance, and they had powerful, short legs. Ron thought of an over-sized crocodile by the way they moved, but there were no scales to be seen, and the animals' tails were much shorter.

Their faces were flat like a bulldog's, but their jaws were double-hinged like a shark, and could extend a full foot forward and open twice as large as they appeared. Their necks were thick and solid, but could also extend forward to a pronounced degree to make a lightning-quick strike at prey that thought itself out of reach.

They had three eyes that were forward facing, forming a triangle, with short, angular noses tucked in under the center orb.

The first impression in Ron's mind was that they were utterly hideous.

They were by far the most feared creatures in the Triad before the infamous "Tracker" animals were discovered on Redalia. (The first time they used the terror hounds to try and capture a tracker; the beast slaughtered a pack of twenty hounds before running off virtually uninjured.)

Ron stood his ground, assessing the threat out in front of the cave entrance. It looked dire. He felt that with the Benoits, most of the team could survive the fight, but they would be extremely lucky if all could travel afterward.

Draake and Al joined him a moment later, their weapons at the ready. They were confident and unafraid, limbering up for the brawl. The hounds could hurt them, their teeth and claws being extremely sharp and powerful, but they were trained, experienced, hardened soldiers.

"Have you ever faced these creatures before?" Ron asked of Draake.

"No," he growled, "but it is said that they can strike fear into any man, and cause him to kill himself rather than face them."

Ron had never read a thing about the hounds, and decided he would just have to watch and adapt as he went. After all, the first two had died like any other careless beasts...although he had to admit that they were much smaller than those the team now faced. Perhaps they were the youngest, and therefore not as cunning.

The hounds continued their advance until they ringed the entire entrance to the cave in a perfect crescent formation. Ron took up a position between the two Ultras...Draake on his left and Al to his right...and felt they had an above average chance to hold their ground.

Fraidze and Dex held back at Draake's order and fed the fire until it was roaring.

Then it began.

First, Ron felt a queasy sensation in his stomach. Then his head started to pound and a metallic taste of bile crept up the back of his tongue. His thoughts became difficult to follow and the sharpness of his mind clouded badly. He tried to focus harder but ended up staring at his hands as they quivered uncontrollably.

"Something's wrong," Ron declared, his feet sliding backward a half step. "I can't...think...straight."

He shook his raven head violently, but couldn't repress the need to vomit and ended up losing his dinner on the rocks as he dropped to one knee.

"What the hell?" he struggled to say, feeling his shoulders drooping and his whole body turning from the impending attack.

Ron glanced around at his teammates and found them all in much the same condition. "Oh, no!" he screamed in his mind.

It was almost incomprehensible to see the massive Benoits on the ground, their weapons no longer in their grasps and their basket-sized hands covering their faces.

He tried to grasp the cause of such strange behavior, but was at a loss. His mind clouded heavily and was unable to break free of the single, completely foreign thought that his brain was stringently urging for him to obey; "hide". That idea, in and of itself, baffled him to no end.

Ron changed tactics then, and pressed his balled fist to the rock until half his body's weight was on it, until the feel of the rough granite bit into his knuckles painfully. He closed his eyes and focused on the pain, but still could not expand that focus to helpful, rational thought. He could easily smell the beasts by then and knew they were only a dozen peors or so away now, but the urge to curl up and hide was worse than ever.

He opened his eyes once again and tried to take a deep breath, hoping it would help clear his head, but could not. Everything inside him screamed, "Don't move!" His eyes stung from the sweat that ran into them by that point, his body struggling furiously against his mind. He then heard the soft splat of a droplet of that sweat hitting the stone, and glanced down to see the dark spot of it, clear and distinct in the light film of dust. About a foot away was a small puddle of rainwater, about six inches in diameter. That tiny collection pool had gone unnoticed until then, and wouldn't have been of any consequence at all to the Outcasts...except for a single fact...it wasn't still.

The surface of it should have been glass smooth since no one had walked anywhere near it for quite a while, but it was broken by the slightest of tremors...a steady, ceaseless vibration.

It required every shred of his willpower to lock onto that tiny bit of abnormality and decipher its meaning, but somehow he knew he had to. It took another few moments but the light of reasoning grew steadily, drawing up from the depths of his clouded mind a particular memory.

When he was seventeen and digging up ideas for a term paper topic, he'd read an article in a science magazine about how low frequencies showed a strong influence on the human psyche, and how the movie industry had capitalized on that fact to generate a feeling of dread for every suspenseful scene they wished to portray.

That's when it hit Ron like a punch in the gut...and it might not have if he hadn't once been a mere man of Earth instead of the intrepid war machine he'd been turned into.

It was fear! They were all "cowering"! That was the reason he couldn't think anymore. That was the reason he shook and could no longer stand and face his enemy. And that was the reason the beasts were called "terror hounds".

That's when he understood...and that is when he began to fight back. The animals were utilizing subsonic sounds to manipulate them all...to cause panic to cripple them into defeat.

With the number of hounds out there, they were undoubtedly tuning multiple frequencies for maximum effect by watching the responses of their prey. That was why they hadn't attacked yet. It took time to get their prey completely dominated.

Ron's comprehension had a rapid and immediate response...rage. Those animals dare use a mere trick against him? Was he not the man who'd saved the entire planet of Rauld? Had he not stood against the likes of Reaper-class Kreete warriors and spit in their faces? Had he not survived five santaris in the death games of Caron as Shartae the Invincible! Would he now let a simple magician's ploy best him at mortal combat?

The red haze of fury suddenly slipped across his vision, and his hands abruptly stopped shaking. Ron gripped his blade tight enough that his knuckles popped, and then he inhaled the deep breath that had eluded him earlier.

The acute senses he couldn't make use of a few moments before were instantly back on line and he surveyed his situation without moving, keeping his restored cognizance to himself.

There were at least seven animals in the attacking group. He could hear each of them breathing in quick pants like dogs. They were stationed in a semi-circle around the cave entrance except for two, which had advanced much closer. Ron could feel one of the creatures right behind him, well within striking distance. He wondered for a fraction of a lita why the beast hadn't already killed him, but that was all...and then he broke into motion!

Ron whipped around so quickly that the hound didn't have time to flinch, his machete` striking home on the gaping jaw of the animal, spraying the rock with its purple blood. The beast drew back and tried to retreat but Ron pounced and stuck to it like its own shadow. He was a fiend of slashing steel, and the sharp, heavy blade bit deeply on each pass. It was only four steps later that the creature lay dying on the ground.

Two of the largest hounds standing in the center of the group pulled their heads up suddenly, as if perplexed. Ron's chest rose and fell in a deep, even rhythm, and then he bared his own teeth at the beasts and allowed a new sound into the mix.

The pack of animals was still ten peors away, but at a low bark from the Alpha (the one to the left of center), another hound advanced one Ron. The others in the large group kept up the crippling sounds to make sure they only faced one adversary.

Ron took a few steps forward, pulling the coming skirmish away from his fellows as far as he dared, and then braced himself. When the attacking menace was within the distance of a single pounce, Ron broke first. He feigned a surge to the right, causing the hound to recoil just a fraction, and then dashed left.

The creature was leaning forward with its neck extended, no doubt sensing a quick kill to a rash, unwary foe, but when Ron changed direction so quickly and fluidly in mid stride, it ducked aside clumsily, its snapping jaws slamming shut errantly, instantly unsure of its position.

Ron dove and slashed down at the creature, the thick blade of the machete` slicing deeply along its shoulder, spilling more of the beasts' purple fluid on the stones but not seriously injuring the animal. Ron rolled quickly on the ground and popped up again, directly beside the hound, thusly escaping its retaliatory swiping paw. And when he arose, he brought the tip of the blade across the center right leg of the beast, severing tendons, scraping bone and completely ruining that appendage.

The hound yelped loudly and danced aside in a blink, bringing its head around to face the threat straight on. It growled savagely and snapped at Ron, but was a few inches short of its target. Ron was ready for that move though and leaned away from the drooling teeth, striking with a backhand slash that clipped the hound's neck, releasing a fountain of blood before it could withdraw.

The beast panicked and reared back on its hind two legs, towering over Ron threateningly spread-eagle. Its reach was over seven feet wide and had all its claws exposed as well as its gaping maw. It would have been a frightening creature to any sane person...but it did not face one. It faced Shartae of Caron!

Ron rushed forward quickly but pulled up short and let fly with the wide-bladed weapon aimed straight at the creature's chest. The huge knife flipped once, twice, and then buried itself in the animal with a resounding, "thunk".

The blow shook the hound violently. It immediately dropped back to the ground on all remaining legs where it staggered and clawed at the point of pain, trying desperately to dislodge the machete` from its body. Ron stepped back from the thrashing creature and searched out a new weapon, fully expecting more of the hounds to attack. Instead though, the leader of the pack let out a series of high-pitched whistles and then fell silent again. The rest did not move.

Ron scooped up the spear Bart had carried and faced the pack again. He stood directly between his camp and the wounded animal as it struggled to stand and gasped desperately to breathe. There was no air to be had though because the three-inch-wide blade of steel had cleaved its airway in two, cutting off its lungs completely.

For a moment, Ron thought that perhaps he'd fought himself to a stalemate with the group, each of them busy keeping his friends from fighting, but his alert ears instantly caught the distinct sound of more large animals approaching fast. Reinforcements!

If their allies arrived with him holding only the spear, he knew they would overrun him without fail, so he quickly scanned the area again, looking for something he could use. Then he saw it! The heavy smoke coating on the roof of the cave showed the tact he needed!

Fraidze had stacked their large cache of green limbs off to the side, thinking that if the bats came back they could smoke up the area and run them off. That gave him an idea. Keeping the spear at the ready in his right hand...and the hounds in sight...he backed his way to the pile and quickly tossed that leafy material on the fire with his left.

The light breeze allowed the smoke to linger and swirl, completely engulfing the entrance of the cave, so Ron dropped the spear and began hauling his teammates into the shroud of it. Dex was no problem, cringing from his touch but not putting up a fight, but when he tried to move Draake it was a different story. Even his herculean strength couldn't lift the massive fellow in the balled up position he had assumed...and he still would not respond to Ron's voice. Ron tried to drag him, but in the state he was in Draake flinched hard enough to send Ron flying to the ground, barely missing the fire pit.

The sounds of the approaching enemy were close by then so Ron had to get creative. In a last ditch effort, he snatched up one of the flaming fags from the fire and pressed it to Draake's rear end. The giant jerked away from the painful jolt, growling and showing at least a bit of coherence. He was still in a semi-seated attitude though, so Ron didn't miss his chance, attacking the ultra-heavy-worlder without once considering the possible danger.

He pounded Draake a straight shot to the jaw and then kneed him hard at the side of the head. That blow infuriated the huge captain and brought the giant's eyes into full focus of his attacker, his anger overtaking the spell the six-legged creatures had on him.

The next blow Ron threw wound up locked in a palm that could've engulfed his whole head.

Draake rose instantly, snatched Ron up by that arm, and stared at him with rage dancing in his hideous, misshapen eyes.

"I will pound your sorry..." Draake began.

"Stow it, Draake!" Ron countered. "And get your ass into cover before we're overrun!"

Draake looked around and saw what he meant, immediately dropping him and grabbing Al before dashing into the smoke cloud.

Once out of sight, they squeezed as far into the cave as they could, where a strong draft was sliding through the narrow passage of the dark cavern and pushing the smoke outward. They were extremely grateful for that airflow too, because if it weren't for that breeze, they'd all have been choking to death on their own smoke screen.

"We need to bring the others back around so we can fight," Ron said hastily. "I used the fire to...wait a lita! How do you feel...and I don't mean your physical injuries?"

"Fine. What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? The dragen trance you were in! The trance those hounds put us all in! Those beasts can somehow hone in on our minds and incapacitate us through sounds they generate."

"I don't hear anything," Draake said, his head tilting to listen more intently.

"Yeah!" Ron replied, his brain speeding along as he too tried to isolate the odd frequency they'd used. Then his eyes found the solution.

"It's the cave! The funnel shape of the cave is screwing up their abilities. You see? The further back into the funnel we go, the less impact the sounds have."

"Okay, so what's your plan?" the leader asked hurriedly, still not quite understanding Ron's point. "We can't all fit in here, or stay here very long."

"Yeah, I know, but haul everyone as deeply into the cave as you can...quickly!"

As the smoke began to thin, they got the others away from the hounds enough to break the spells with a few good slaps. Ron explained the situation to the team as quickly as he could and they all drew their weapons, although the low roof of the cave didn't allow for any room to swing most of them. Ron stood guard with the spear, and had Dex shore up his right side with his dulchira.

"We can't fight like this," Fraidze finally announced from his cramped position wedged in the back of the cave, sounding out what everyone else was thinking. "And if we go out to meet them, we'll be hypnotized again."

"I know...I know," Ron acknowledged, his mind blitzing through possible scenarios that might work.

The fire quickly consumed the majority of the wood they'd collected, and as it burned lower, the team members took lower and lower positions as well, until they were all either crouching or prone.

Half a billot later, when the whole team lay flat on the ground trying to avoid the lung-burning stench of the green leaves, it was Fraidze who happened upon the solution. The draft of air that was flowing outward from the back of the cave was cool and clean enough to keep them from suffocating, but just barely, so he began wondering if they could somehow open the fissure a bit wider to get a stronger breeze going.

He was the closest one to the draft's point of egress so he felt around in the darkness hastily. With a bit of effort he found he could reach his arm through one portion of the opening, and when he did he noticed there was a cavity on the other side. He snapped his fingers a few times and listened for the echo. The many santaris of experience in the innards of Parkanick immediately told him the space on the other side was large, easily big enough to hold his teammates.

"Hey, guys!" Fraidze said. "There's a chamber on the other side of this wall! Maybe there's another way out through there."

That news brought Draake and Al to the scene while Ron and Dex maintained their watch.

The Ultras moved Fraidze aside and Al went to work. He dug what he could with his bucket-sized hands and then kicked and pounded at the opening with the butt of his axe until he'd shattered and chipped it away large enough for a man to go through.

"Ronin, see what is in there!" Draake ordered gruffly.

No one questioned his choice of men, Ron being the smallest, and into the hole he went, a flaming torch in his hand, leading the way.

Ron squeezed into the small space with all haste, his eyes quickly adjusting to the limited light of the flame. It was a good-sized ante-room, more than ten peors across and high enough that the men could even stand.

"It looks good!" he called back to the team, and then squirmed onward.

The last few feet of the trip led him downward a bit, and he slid to the base of the room in the debris Al had forced through. Without a moment's hesitation Ron stuck the torch into a pile of crumbled rock and went to work.

"Let me have your sword, Draake," he called back.

The five-foot long weapon quickly skittered to his feet and Ron began chipping away at his side of the opening. The rock wasn't as hard as the ore they'd dug on Parkanick and the blade tip worked pretty well.

"Fraidze, toss me your club!" he called out.

That too appeared as if by magic, and Ron began pounding the edges of the opening with that hefty mace.

In five borts Ron had tripled the size of the hole and the other men were working beside him.

"Hurry!" ordered Draake. "They have moved into the mouth of the cave."

"I can feel it again," Al said a moment later, the faltering of his voice obvious.

Dex took a moment away from his work to wield his weapon. Through the aperture of their escape route he took aim at the closest hound. They were all right up to the edge of the fire line by then and one was advancing on Al. The Benoi soldier had dropped to one knee just behind Draake and was shaking violently, fighting with all he had against the urge to crumple completely to the ground.

One of the animals was further away than the rest, and sported four feet of spear shaft protruding from its left shoulder. Draake had stopped that one first.

Dex sighted in his target but the beast was directly behind his teammate.

"Draake!" Dex shouted. "Al is in my line!"

The huge captain was feeling the effects of the hounds again too but he was still able to act. He lunged forward and grabbed Al by the collar, yanking him against the rock wall, clear of Dex's aim. Dex didn't wait either. The instant Al's hulking form moved, he sent that shaft along, burying it in the chest of the hound.

The creature flinched hard but did not retreat, still edging onward toward its goal. Half a bort later it was within reach of Al and his huge, gaping jaws dripped with saliva, anticipating the taste of its prey. It then struck at Al in a flashing maneuver, but never reached him. Draake had fought through his sickening feeling and brought the huge, double-edged axe up and through the hound's skull, cleaving it in two.

Ron was by his side when he yanked that weapon free of the creature.

"Get in there, Draake!" Ron yelled before two more hounds could rush in.

Draake staggered toward the inner chamber, dragging Al by the collar behind him, with Ron straining to help. Dex and Fraidze were screaming at them to hurry.

Draake dove headfirst through the opening, being assisted by the humans on the inside, and then they both reached out and dragged Al in by the hands, his mind fully shut down by then and totally at the mercy of the beasts.

Ron ended up back-peddling into the opening while fending off two of the hounds with the dulchira he'd yanked out of that last creature's body. He got a little scraped up, but narrowly avoided those snapping-turtle jaws.

When Ron had finally crawfished his way into the chamber, he and his teammates all collapsed to the floor of the cave in a huff of relief, immensely thankful that the creatures were too wide to fit through the opening.

One of the beasts stuck its head in and made a meager attempt to get at the men, its drooling beak slapping shut several times, but that was pure folly. Draake quickly sunk four feet of his sword down that one's throat which forced its immediate withdrawal and subsequent death. The rest merely milled about in the outer cavern, growling and barking in obvious frustration.

When the threat receded and the team had recovered, Draake grabbed one of the torches they'd brought with them and took a hurried walk around the chamber to verify there were no more openings that the creatures might utilize. He found that the air influx came from a long, narrow tube that even Ron could not fit through, and that there were no other entrances.

That gave him peace and consternation at the same time. The hounds could not get in, but the team could not get out either.

By then, everyone had drawn the same conclusion of course, but none spoke of it.

The enormous team captain completed his inspection with a final maneuver. He hefted a boulder the size of Fraidze and jammed it into the access hole like a giant stopper, just to make certain none of the hounds could get even their snouts through. Then he turned to his team.

"We seem to be trapped here, but too, we are safe for the moment. That is something to celebrate all by itself, so we should make use of it. Everyone should eat and drink your fill...and then get some rest. We will deal with the next step when we awaken."

By the time they'd followed Draake's orders, the meager torch they brought with them had burned itself out and so they were left in nearly total darkness.

That was all right though because exhaustion swiftly won out over any worries the men had at the time.

They were all out in moments.

### Chapter Thirty-eight

### Onward

Day 4:

Dawn arrived five billots later without further incident, and although nearly constant echoes of scratching and growling could have been heard throughout the night, the men slept soundly through it all.

As the sun's glow began to build once again in the emerald sky above, the Outcasts too began to stir.

Draake roused groggily and leaned over on one elbow to have a look through the small opening beside his "plug" rock.

"They're all gone," Ron reported.

The Benoi captain turned first one way and then the other, searching out the originator of that echoing statement, but the dim light filtering in from the access port helped him little. "Where the dragen sark are you?"

His efforts in the dark were clumsy and loud, waking the rest of the team as well.

Ron smiled at the giant. He could see quite well and was lying comfortably in the far corner of the cave as if napping in a hammock on a summer day. "They were called away about twenty borts ago."

"Called away?" Fraidze asked; sleep still heavy in his speech. "What do you mean?"

"Yes, Ronin," Al asked, his voice rumbling around the chamber like a loose boulder. "What do you mean?"

Ron sat up and stretched, then got to is feet. "They were slumbering outside the cave when the leader of the pack suddenly raised its head and looked off to the south. I never heard a sound, but a lita afterward it leaped to its feet and gave a single, low whistle. They all then bolted off at a fast run."

"But why do you think...?" pressed Dex.

"Well, I didn't notice at the time, but when we first got to the cave, our Cnaut observer was hovering in the trees about forty peors to the northeast. When the hounds took off, I saw it glide back into view from the north, taking up its old position. I'll wager that when we...that is, 'if we'...ever get a chance to view the recordings from the Games, we'll find that nothing was ever seen of those beasts."

No one said anything, but they all exchanged long, knowing glances. There were always rumors that strange things went on during the Games when one or another teams showed too much promise.

"So they sent the creatures to either kill us, or delay us," Draake surmised.

"That's my guess...yeah," Ron admitted while still stretching and limbering up.

"You said they left twenty borts ago?"

Ron nodded.

"Why didn't you awaken us then?"

"I figured I'd give it half a billot, just to make sure they didn't return. They seemed to be extremely intelligent and I didn't want to fall into a well-laid trap."

"Humph!" Draake snorted in agreement.

Draake peered around the plug again until he spotted the Cnaut, and then he removed the huge stone and allowed Ron out the entrance to make a quick survey of the area. He smirked at the scene when he found that even the hounds they'd killed were somehow gone.

He gave Draake the "all-clear" sign and immediately began retrieving the weapons they'd lost during the brief skirmish, each of which was strewn about the open ground.

"Well, I don't know who cleaned up, but at least they didn't take these," Ron sighed as he replaced his machete` in its sheath and hefted the long, heavy spear.

As they packed away their camp and prepared for the next phase of the journey, Ron scaled the rocky knoll above the cave and shinnied up a tall tree to gain his next navigational target. When he was satisfied with the route, he took a few extra moments to search out their competitors.

The closest team to the south showed only three members left. The one to the north had four. He scanned further out carefully but there was no sign of the Kreete. That didn't really surprise him though. It had taken them a long time to get the Benoits across the river, and when he combined that with the long night they'd just had, he couldn't help but wonder how much that had cost them.

He couldn't worry over that though...it was what it was. Ron knew his team was lucky to still have five fully functional members. He then breathed in a large gulp of air and silently thanked their good fortune because he knew it could have gone much worse on several occasions.

A bort later he dropped to the ground beside Draake once more.

"All set?"

The giant nodded, as did everyone else.

Ron ran off as point-man again, weaving across the rough terrain smoothly and swiftly. The men were at least somewhat rested and so the entire team moved quickly as well.

The terrain on that section of the journey grew less hilly and more open, so each of them was happy to be able to stretch their legs and just run, confident that their leader would warn them of any danger.

Over the rocky ground they ran until midday, when another major obstacle presented itself before them.

It was another gorge. At the bottom of it was a raging river, much narrower than the last, but also much more treacherous. At barely sixty peors across, the whitewater torrent was easily thirty feet below where they stood and ripped through the channel at more than twenty hoz per billot. Furthermore, while their side had a slender bank to stand on down below, the other had nothing. Over there the water splashed and careened off a smooth, well worn, sheer cliff of at least fifty feet straight up, which also meant they couldn't even see what awaited them on the far side.

Dex let out a long whistle of amazement. "How can we possibly climb that?"

His question was moot though because it was clear that no one could swim that maelstrom. A simple bridge was out of the question as well. At sixty peors wide, with a ten peor rise on the other side, there was no way they could construct anything close to that span.

Their next option fell naturally to the trees in the vicinity. There were some that grew right up to the water's edge, but it only took a moment to realize that none of them were tall enough to span the waterway with enough extra length to let them simply shinny their way across.

The team members stood there for a long while just staring, their minds once again in turmoil. The task was a total nightmare!

"We need to get a rope over that cliff," Ron announced after looking up and down the bank several times. "We'll have to pull ourselves across the watercourse."

"That's insane!" Dex exclaimed. He'd already repelled down and tested the water. It was fresh snowmelt, and near freezing in temperature.

"There's no other way."

For the next full billot the team sat at the edge of the impassable river and brainstormed over ways to make the crossing. They first tried the same method Draake had used on the last cliff...facing the opposite direction though, just in case. That turned out to be no good however because even though the Benoits could toss the grappler well past the distance, when they added the heavy rope they carried, it cut the throw in half.

They discussed numerous different catapults and slingshots using the trees, but the likelihood of success was always too low. Furthermore, they had the added worry that if the grappling hook did not reach the target, it would likely fall into the river, and if that happened, retrieval of it might become impossible. After all, no one knew what the bottom of the riverbed was like. It seemed probable to be as rocky as the rest of the area and likely decorated with cracks and crevices that would snag their tool.

The morning drug on with no viable solutions, and as time passed their discussions grew more and more heated until...

"What about this?" Fraidze finally said in desperation. "We find two tall trees that are fairly close together and hack off the limbs that face each other, okay? Then the Benoits climb up as high as they can and tie themselves off to the trunk for safety. After that, they each drop a rope down to us on the ground, and then one of us...me, I guess since it's my idea...gets secured to the ends of the two ropes. Next, they swing me back and forth in a giant arc until I get out far enough and high enough over the river to toss the grappling hook across."

Everyone was following the idea in their minds, mentally calculating the probabilities of success, and so they didn't respond immediately. The silence drew on for a few litas.

Fraidze looked around the team hastily, his face a picture of excitement. Nobody was dismissing it! Could it really work?

"Well?" he asked, his hands quivering with anticipation.

Draake glanced again at the trees, then at the river, and finally at his countryman. He and Al nodded simultaneously.

Ron was already on his feet, scanning the landscape and doing more assessments.

"That's not bad!" Ron told him. "Not bad at all! It has real possibilities with little threat of injury or death."

They located a pair of tall trees with straight trunks and went to work immediately...Al up one side and Draake on the other. It was precarious, laborious, and time consuming, but by late evening they were eighty feet up their respective trees, rigging up the giant swing as planned.

They constructed a harness for Fraidze that would keep him upright and oriented forward. Then they positioned the two Benoits to man their lofty posts. Without further hesitation they strapped Fraidze in and handed him the sword-grappler. It was tied to a strong rope which he coiled and held in his arms. After he was set, Dex handed him the end of yet another, smaller cord that he could let go of when needed. That lighter rope was the way Ron and Dex set him in motion. Once he was going well, Fraidze let go the small cord and let the massive Ultras do the rest. It was fairly quick work from there for those brutes to get him really sailing.

In only a few borts the two giants could see that Fraidze was as high as they could get him and appeared up far enough to get the job done.

"Now!" Draake hollered as Fraidze rose to the peak of the swing, seventy five feet above the raging rapids. With a strong underhand toss, the rope unfurled smoothly and arched nicely, flying perfectly through the air...and came up twenty feet short!

Fraidze's jaw dropped open with surprise, and as he fell back toward the bank, the trailing anchor and rope tumbled into the water and drew tight, ripping the rope from his hands. By then fortunately, Fraidze was over land again and everything should have been fine, but the raging torrent snatched the remainder of the rope and tugged it hard, speeding it away from the shocked watchers.

Ron saw the end slithering toward the river and dove at it, just getting his left outstretched hand on it before it was gone. As it was though, his momentum carried him into the rapids up to the waist, and if it were not for Dex lunging as well and grabbing his ankles, he would have been sucked in by the power of the surging fluid.

Dex frantically hauled Ron back onto land and then collapsed in a panting heap, his heart rate spiking from the adrenaline surge. Ron scrambled to his feet a moment later, still sputtering and shaking the water from his thick mane of sable hair, and gave a quick thanks to his ebony teammate while breathing out a huge sigh of relief. Then he began hauling in the rope. However, when the cord drew taught they had another problem. The grappler was snagged on the rocky bottom of the river just the way they'd feared.

It took them another billot of anxious work to get it free, and by then Ron had devised a slight modification to their plan.

"Was Fraidze difficult to handle Draake...Al?"

"Not too bad, they agreed.

"Okay then...I'm going to take his place."

"But Fraidze made a fine cast and it was still well short," Dex interjected with confusion in his tone. "And we nearly lost the grappler. Why risk it again?"

"I have a rather unique idea," Ron told him with a sly, almost maniacal grin.

Ron roped himself into the sling, but instead of tying off to his middle, he secured the bindings to his feet and ankles. Then he ran those main support strands straight up his back where he had Dex lash them together again, and then secure that tie-off to his chest. Next, Ron instructed Fraidze to coil the rope around his arms so it could unspool smoothly.

"Ronin," Al called down from his high perch when Ron announced he was ready. "You have mistakenly tied off backwards. We will have to swap the support lines."

Ron smiled. "No, this is what I had in mind. Let's give it a go and see if it works."

Draake shrugged his massive shoulders and then he and Al started over. It took less time because of Ron's slighter mass, and soon he was soaring back and forth through the air like a circus performer, standing upright and facing away from the river.

"Okay!" Draake bellowed after a few borts. "That is as high as we can get you!"

"Good!" Ron called out before heading back to the forest. He then readied himself, moving one of the blades that made up the grappler closer to his chest.

Down he hurtled toward the ground, his boots barely two feet above the turf, before flashing by the bank and out over the water. The exhilaration of the ride was powerful and intoxicating, almost enough to break his concentration, but not quite. When he felt himself reach nearly horizontal, he sliced through the bindings tying his torso to the support ropes.

Such an action at the apex of his motion resulted in a frightening response to the men below. When Ron cut away the bindings that kept him upright, it allowed his body to pivot around harshly, lending him additional speed and leverage for the throw. Facing backward at that point caused his shoulders to hurtle toward the ground and then snap around sharply to the outside of the arc.

As soon as he saw the top of the cliff enter his vision, Ron released his hold on the grappler. His timing couldn't have been more perfect either as the weighty device flew in a beautiful arc, out and away across the green-tinged sky, trailing a long thread of rope behind.

The anchor made the distance with an extra ten feet to spare and immediately jammed into the soft dirt and myriad of rocky crags on that side. As Ron sped back toward the shore, the rope unfurled once again as planned, but this time it simply dropped into the river by design. At that point Fraidze and Dex hauled away on a lighter cord they'd tied to the end of that rope and merely reeled it in.

It was then however, that the return trip aboard the gigantic swing suddenly transformed into something opposite the thrilling sport it had been. Due to the fantastic maneuver Ron had made, his fun-ride suddenly threatened to end much more violently than he'd planned.

With the new attitude of his figure, Ron's head hung down a full body-length lower than his feet had on the last pass. The two-foot safety margin he'd enjoyed before, was now decidedly gone. In fact, his skull was presently more than four feet lower than the level of the ground.

Ron had anticipated that fact, and so as soon as he saw the grappler land he snapped his body into a jackknife position, grabbing onto his ankles with the intent of pulling himself back upright. However, the pull of Jarhress was such that all he could manage was to hold that position. Even with all his strength, he could not advance it against the combined gravitational and centrifugal forces trying to smash him to the ground. That's when he realized that in his focus to get the job done, he'd failed to prepare for such a contingency.

"PULL ME UP!" Ron yelled as loudly as he could, but it was fruitless in such close proximity to the rushing water. The deluge easily drowned out his frantic pleas.

### Chapter Thirty-nine

### Close Call

Ron had escaped certain death many times by what seemed to be either blind luck or divine intervention, but at that moment it looked extremely grim to the indomitable man of two worlds. In fact, if it wasn't for the quick thinking and brute power of the massive Benoits, he would indeed have slammed into the rocky bank with catastrophic results.

Draake and Al were no mindless brutes though, and immediately saw Ron's predicament as he hurtled toward the river's embankment. They knew exactly how much line they'd let out to get him as close to the ground as possible during the swinging phase and so also knew now that his current condition was doomed. With that, they lent their incomparable strength at just the right time to lift him clear of the rocky terrain by a good three feet. And when he swung up to the weightless position once more, he righted himself, keeping his body in the proper attitude afterward until he could safely disembark. From there, the remainder of the ride turned pleasant again and his racing heart returned to its normal cadence.

By the time he was stationary once more, the rest of the team had the rope pulled taught around a nearby tree and Fraidze was on his way across. Ron wriggled his way out of the coils while watching his friend with great angst. The first person across was the most important and the most dangerous. If the grappling hook failed, he surely would perish.

Fraidze was smart though and kept his movements smooth and rhythmic, never jostling the rope more than absolutely necessary. After about ten borts he was safely atop the far ridge and was hastily resetting the anchor point to a jutting shard of rock where he tied the rope off securely. A few moments later he signaled for the next man to go, so Dex leaped into action while Ron and Al helped Draake stow the rest of their gear.

It was a difficult climb because of the odd angle, but the human men scrambled over handily enough. The weight of the Benoits was another matter however, and it made their crossing much more treacherous. The rope sagged so pointedly under the strain that when Al set out, the rest thought him a goner for certain. After a few prolonged, harrowing moments when he was underwater though, he eventually broke the surface and started up the cliff. The temperature of the water that would have undoubtedly meant death to the men was unable to penetrate his thick, dense hide quickly enough to do him harm. After that, he made it rather handily.

The last to cross was Ron. They could ill afford to lose such a valuable tool as the rope, so he loosened the end of it on his side and tied it off securely to his left wrist. Then, at his command, Al and Draake gripped the rope tightly and set off at a dead sprint, which for someone the size of the Benoits was quite an impressive speed. Ron was nearly yanked off his feet and zoomed across the water so fast he barely had time to curse the chill of it before he was catching himself on the opposite side with his feet. Dex timed his orders for those huge men to stop just right too, so Ron didn't slam into the cliff's face at a dangerous velocity. And when they took off again a moment later, Ron sailed straight up like he was on an express elevator.

When all was in order to continue their trek, they took time out for a quick meal and some rest. The trip was draining them, especially when considering they had no idea what might be coming next.

Ron ate on his feet while facing eastward and studying the newest obstacle. He'd seen a good two hoz into this impending section while on the trapeze ride, and was deeply concerned.

His teammates were on their feet again shortly, pressing forward with as much haste as they could, but after barely half a hoz of nice flat ground, and for as far as they could see beyond that point, the land was a literal maze. It wasn't the kind one would typically expect, but was a maze nonetheless.

The ground had once been entirely flat and unbroken...the floor of some inland sea no doubt. Had it remained as such, it would have made for a wonderfully level, easy walk or run. However, over the eons, thousands of floods (maybe millions) had eroded the chalky pseudo-rock terrain in a very odd and fascinating way...at least fascinating if you didn't have to cross it on foot. The uppermost surface was still level, but the water had forced its way through cracks and avenues in the limestone deposit until there were only tall, slim spires of solid footing left standing. It resembled irregularly spaced pilings of a tremendous wharf...only a wharf with all the upper decking missing. And the pilings themselves were of countless sizes.

Some were ten feet across and twenty feet long, while others were as thin as six inches by three feet. And the sides of them were sheer and smooth. It was inordinately apparent to the Outcasts that planning a way across that land would be a challenge of foresight...almost like a chess game.

Once again, Ron looked left and right for his opponents and found only two teams out on the expanse. The Kreete were far out already, but he could only see five of them. That gave him hope. If their numbers were dropping that fast, it was a good sign for the future events.

He then refocused his sights on the area nearby and gave his report to the team.

"If the lighter men go first and test the solidity of the route, it will make for a better chance that you heavy-worlders will succeed," he told Draake.

The big man shook his head. "This time I must disagree. We should take three different routes, each parallel to the others, so that if one should come to an impasse, the others will already have an alternate course plotted."

Ron had to admit that Draake's plan would inevitably be faster, but he worried about its level of danger. He felt confident he would make out fine because when he looked out at the hop-scotch maze he could see a clear path, but he didn't like that plan for the others. If they didn't stick together, the group would be more exposed to multiple avenues of danger.

"That will make it impossible to keep a safety line on all of us," he protested. "If someone misses a jump, or loses their footing, they're done!"

"Yes, but we have fallen behind in the race have we not? I saw the Kreete team. This will be the quickest way."

Ron couldn't condemn his logic and had to acquiesce. If they fell too far behind, they would be unable to catch up with the leaders, and that would make this entire contest a waste of time anyway. Jazz's efforts would have all been in vain, Rauld might be lost, and also, his friends might all go back to prison.

"Very well, then. We'd best get on with it."

The team then spread out in three groups. The two Benoits started out on the largest towers to Ron's right and made huge jumps appear easy in the relatively light gravity. Dex and Fraidze were paired up to his left, and also did well. They even took Ron's precautionary advice by lashing themselves together, just in case.

Ron plotted his own course in a blink and immediately set off leaping adroitly from peak to peak.

They made good speed for a while...until just over a quarter-hoz in. At that point the gaps between the landing pads grew sharply more dangerous.

To gain any progress through that section, each of the humans were forced to make numerous sideways jumps and then work their way back, and after a few billots of that, Ron was definitely feeling the strain, and Fraidze and Dex were exhausted.

The pairs had been forced farther apart too, because the humans couldn't make it across the larger gaps that the Benoits could, and the Ultras couldn't follow the men onto the lighter columns. Therefore, the Ultras were far ahead and making excellent progress and didn't think to wait.

The day was getting short and the shadows long when the three men decided to take a break. Ron wanted to keep going, but he feared the others would not be able to continue at the pace he'd set, so he held back. If they needed him, he wanted to be nearby. Too, the thought of back-tracking any real distance across this hazardous landscape to aid them wasn't something he relished.

While they munched on their rations, Ron stood as tall as he could and plotted a new course. He then scanned the horizon, looking for the other squads.

The ultra-flat surface of the ancient sea lent its assistance in his task and he spotted three other teams. Two were merely specs in the distance, but he could make out their numbers and positions. The Kreete were still just ahead of the Benoits, but seeing them down by two now suddenly hit Ron as rather odd. The course had been very challenging; no doubt about it, but to lose two men out of their elite group in one event was quite something. Had they taken too many chances to keep the pace high, or had luck merely turned on them? Or had the course simply been filled with too many deadly creatures for them to avoid? Ron just shook his head. He may never know.

The other groups were behind his, struggling with the crossing as much as his fellows were. Ron looked back to the Benoits, still leaping their great distances and growing smaller on the horizon, and he felt confident he could have kept up with them. Together they would have caught the Kreete and maybe even passed them, but four of the team had to finish or there would be no victory, so he didn't see a point to pushing himself. They would just have to wait for the men when they reached the far side.

Suddenly though, he saw one of the giants leap up and then disappear...and then in the next instant, the other!

"Shit!" he grunted, now straining to follow the next series of events.

He glanced quickly at the large coil of rope he and his men carried and remembered that the Benoits hadn't taken any. He snatched the bundle off Fraidze's pack and ordered the men to their feet.

"Let's go! The Benoits have fallen and we have to get to them!"

Forgetting their weary state, the two men popped up and headed off in Ron's wake. He left them behind quickly, but followed a route they should be able to handle, only taking a couple of shortcuts due to some death-defying leaps across the abyss.

It took a good twenty borts of arduous efforts to reach them though, and when he did, Ron saw the problem was grave.

Draake was thirty feet down and his right shoulder and arm were wedged tightly between two columns. His left arm wrapped the larger column in a death-grip, but gave him no leverage at all to work with. He couldn't move and could barely breathe. Further inspection revealed something hanging below him, a weight of some kind, and its snare was around Draake's left calf. It must have been incredibly heavy as Draake's strength was tremendous and he seemed powerless to budge it.

Draake's back was dripping blood too, from where he'd jammed himself into his current, precarious position. He was also situated such that he couldn't even get to his sword to try and cut the weight loose, and Ron could see the pain and panic in his normally morose eyes.

Ron tossed down a rope, but he refused it.

"You cannot help me! If I let go of my position, we'll all go down!" he announced. "It is a lost cause. You should all continue onward. I will meet my fate here."

Beneath him was a thirty-foot drop, and although the water was no longer an issue, the ground was littered with smaller spires of stone. It was a natural bear trap!

Without further hesitation Ron looped his rope around the top of the column he stood upon and dropped over the edge. He was down to Draake in only a few litas and then his machete` leaped from its scabbard.

The Benoi was too far away to reach because he'd toppled over to a shorter set of columns by the pull of the anchor, so Ron secured himself with the rope and pushed off hard. He swung out wide of his target because of the pendulum effect of the maneuver, but after a couple practice swings, he had the distance gauged perfectly. He then kicked off one more time, his blade pulled back for a strike.

What looked like a thin cord turned out to be a tough wire...definitely a snare...and for a split lita Ron wondered if his blade would cut it, wishing for the black razor he so loved. But when he flew by and released his best effort in a twisting, spinning strike, he was rewarded with instant success.

The weight fell away and smashed into the lower stone daggers with resounding clatter and caused the destruction of three of them...and Draake let out a tremendous sighing grown.

"Find AL!" he ordered immediately.

Fraidze and Dex fished down another length of cord which Draake happily accepted. They tied it off securely and Draake fairly flew up it until he was safely on top once more, splayed out on the upper surface and panting heavily.

Ron lowered himself all the way to the ground then to search for Al. The giant hadn't made a single call for help as of yet and he felt a growing sensation of doom about the enormous fellow. He watched Draake's rescue through furtive glances while he picked his way carefully around, searching for the other Ultra, but his hunt did not end well.

Al was only ten peors from Draake's location, but had fallen all the way to the bottom. His body was pierced by three of the smallest columns in the area...those that had worn down to merely four feet in length. Unfortunately, they were also perfect, ghastly spears. In an instant it was obvious to Ron that he had not survived, but he checked the giant all the same. It was as he'd feared.

A muffled grunt and the sound of a boot slipping on rock made Ron suddenly whirl about.

His superbly sharp eyes caught a single movement in that deep, treacherous place...from off to the north. It was only a fleeting glimpse of an object, but he felt certain of just exactly what it was. The ash-grey coloring blended in almost perfectly with the exposed rock of the area, especially in the waning light, but he was not fooled. It was a Kreete warrior's hand! He'd stumbled in the dimness of the canyon's cluttered and uneven floor and caught himself against a column.

"You fucking flarge scum!" Ron growled, but there was nothing he could do. To pursue the warrior through that spiny maze would have been highly dangerous in broad daylight, but now, so close to nightfall, it would be pure insanity. Ron did the only thing he could.

"Rest in peace, Alistropolis Popenegrin," he said with his hand firmly on the giant's shoulder. "You've earned it."

He then gathered Al's pack and axe, returned to his rope, and climbed.

### Chapter Forty

### Things That Go 'Snap' in the Night

Ron felt assured at that moment that he and his team would be threatened no more since the Kreete scout was clearly in full retreat, but he wondered at how the fellow had breached the sensors keeping the teams apart. Then it hit him! Grayle must have started the event with only six men on the course! And since the participants were the only ones being tracked, the seventh member could have staked out the route on the previous day and laid in wait.

"Those assholes really hate to lose!" Ron grumbled as he continued upward.

The other members of the Outcasts were all together by the time Ron gained their column, and each of them was winded and weary. Fraidze slowly pried the deeply imbedded snare wire out of Draake's calf muscle which caused blood to flow freely from the wound, but Ron did note that the color returned to the big man's leg, so that at least was a good sign.

It seemed a good time for a rest, so everyone took a seat with their legs drooping over the edge of the column while Fraidze doctored Draake as best he could. Some antiseptic, a healthy layer of synthaskin, and a tight wrap around the wound was about all he could do for the moment, but afterward the huge Benoi lay back and stared up at the open sky as if in complete comfort.

Draake felt deeply distraught at the loss of his only other countryman, but too, he was incredibly grateful to still have the ability to draw in air.

"It was a trap, was it not?" he asked to the green-tinged heavens.

"Yes," Ron replied.

"The Kreete?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it. You remember what Isiadarma told us? All the dangers were natural. Well these snares were not. I believe they were Kreete made!"

Draake didn't say another word for the next five borts. He just lay there and breathed.

"What now?" Dex asked softly.

They had lost three of their teammates in less than a week, and that seemed a devastating blow. Without the power and authority of the Benoi trio, he and Fraidze didn't see how they could possibly continue. Ron merely sat where he was and watched. He already knew exactly what he would do...fight to the bitter end.

"We get the sark off this dragen maze, that's what," Draake replied in his old, gravelly tone. He then propped himself up on his elbow and regarded his smaller teammates. "Those chinch-eating, spawns of whores wouldn't have gone through the trouble of sabotaging our ship, and then risked the humiliation of getting caught with that little trap, if they weren't scared out of their wits that we might beat them. I say we do exactly that!"

Then, as if suddenly having awakened from a long, refreshing slumber, he rose up and took off once more...apparently disregarding the intense pain of his torn muscle.

The injured Benoi was still an impressive being, and he was determined that his fellows' deaths would not be in vain, so he drove himself hard. He could have left the men trailing far behind again, but decided to take a much less aggressive avenue this time. Ron didn't know if it was because he was crippled, or just intent on keeping them all closer together. After all, if it hadn't been for the humans, he could not have avoided a very nasty fate...for the second time.

As the sun dropped low on the horizon, they all saw the end of that leg of their journey and pressed a little harder. They reached it half a billot later...a flat, sandy stretch of land that reached to the edge of their vision...or to another cliff...they couldn't tell which.

There were slight undulations in its surface that reminded Ron of sand dunes he'd seen during a trip to the Sonoran Desert once, but that was about it. Not a tree or bush could be spotted.

The openness of the ground lent a promise of safety and tranquility, but just after they were on solid ground, Ron noticed that the team south of them had stopped short of that goal and camped on one of the larger columns, close to the edge. He instantly wondered about that as shadow shrouded the land in deepening twilight, and his eyes scoured that open patch of turf yet again.

There were thousands of small dark lumps lying about that had been uncovered by the wind at some point, and so Ron investigated them immediately. It turned out that they were dried animal droppings. Ron did what he could to identify what type of creature had deposited them, but could find no prints in the soft topsoil, so he had to assume the wind had obliterated the evidence. He did however know what to do with those hard little mounds.

"We should collect what we can of these droppings before it gets too dark," he proposed, and since there wasn't a single other type of tender, the men all jumped to it, even Draake. After the two previous nights' encounters, they certainly didn't want to be caught out in the dark with no fire.

Everyone hurriedly gathered a large pile of the dung and built a fire, careful to stay upwind of the smoke which was rather potent. Soon they were relaxing beside the warm blaze, feeling the days' trials pulling their minds quickly toward sleep. And after a meal from their personal stores, each member of the team situated themselves into comfortable positions for the night...that is, all but Ron. His alter ego's life in the mountains of Caron had instilled in him the wariness of a wild beast, and his keen senses kept his thoughts sharp even though he too was badly drained. Once again, though no definitive sign was either seen or heard, he could feel that there was something wrong about that place.

While the others began to unwind and their eyes grew heavy, Ron rose quietly and slowly meandered about the camp in a widening circle of exploration, cataloguing the sounds of the land.

He combed the inky blackness with his ears and identified dozens of creatures...mostly insects calling for a mate in the dark...but warning bells kept tickling his mind as if true danger was only just outside his range of perception.

He also eyed the cliff that marked the edge of deadly ground they'd so recently crossed and found the firelight reflecting against a very dense fog that now hung over the area. The cool updraft from the water below met the warmer temperature of the higher plateau and condensed into what looked like an impenetrable wall of moisture. It appeared rather eerie and portentous to Ron, but as far as he could tell, was benign.

After a long period of inspection, he eventually turned away feeling extremely fortunate to be past that part of the test, and returned to camp where he slowly paced around the slumbering men until the end of his watch. At that time he roused Dex, which wasn't easy.

With his ebony friend standing guard, Ron took his spot beside the warm fire and finally lay down. He decided to put his suspicions aside and rest. After all, what would come next was still to be seen, and might be much worse.

Ron fell asleep quickly, joining his already slumbering teammates in the deep, regular breaths of blissful repose, but his innate abilities stood guard nonetheless...and it was a good thing that they did.

Barely two billots past before Ron's subconscious began to exert itself. He dreamed he was sitting in a forest of dark timber, leaning back against the trunk of a massive tree while he ate a peach the size of a cantaloupe. He felt rested and content, even happy to have such a fine snack to enjoy. His dreaming self questioned the fruit's reality though, since he hadn't seen anything like an Earth peach since leaving for work on that long-ago morning, but the feel of it and the taste was undeniable. He took a huge bite and let the juice run off his hands as he reveled in the purity of the treat.

"Now this is heaven!" he thought. It had been a great while since he was alone and unfettered, free to go where he chose and do what he wanted.

He glanced around the park-like woods with a smile on his face, but that didn't last. As he turned back to his snack, a tiny image caught his eye. In his peripheral vision was an object that vanished immediately when his head swung around to investigate. He stared a long while at that spot, but nothing appeared. Then he suddenly saw another at the other extreme of his sight, and his head snapped about once more. It was gone as well however. This continued for several borts, growing more frequent, yet just as elusive. Finally, Ron dropped his head low and stared at the ground, concentrating his mind on expelling the sight before him and focusing instead only on the edges...the very fringe of his vision...and it worked!

Slowly he began to make out eyes. There were dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands of them, and they were all drawing nearer.

Ron popped awake in an instant, his body and mind both running at full speed. The camp was being watched; by what he didn't know, but he knew they needed to move...quickly!

Dex was still standing guard, so he knew he hadn't been asleep very long, but still his keen steel-gray eyes swept the blackness all about.

Dex heard Ron stir, so he turned to see why, finding his teammate appearing extremely wary and anxious, like a tiger that had just caught whiff of a hunting party. He then watched his friend stare out into the dark with such intensity that he immediately brought his dulchira around to the "on guard" position and copied his search.

Ron finally turned to him and motioned to get closer to the fire, but he did not speak.

As quietly as they could, they roused Draake and Fraidze and cautioned them to stay silent. Next, Ron gathered them all close around the fire and stoked it. As the dying embers burst back into flame, the men saw what it was that Ron had sensed...eyes!

There were countless, lidless eyes reflecting in the glow of the firelight.

Ron watched them carefully and began to understand. The light was keeping them back. For some reason, those creatures could not tolerate the glow of the campfire.

"Okay," he quickly thought. "All we have to do is keep the fire going until daylight!"

Of course his rationale was flawed by the fact that they were nearly out of tinder, and to go hunting for more would be dicey at best.

Earlier, they had gathered all the materials they could in the immediate area, and since they knew almost nothing of the attacking threat, he was more than a little hesitant to venture out among them.

The team members were all coming to the same conclusion and looking around for some avenue of safety, but at every turn were those eyes...except for the way they'd just come. That direction contained the wall of fog.

Before retreating, Ron decided to try and find out what was behind those beady little orbs of reflection so he used his machete` like a shovel and picked out a fist-sized pellet that was burning well. Carefully, he tossed it at the intruders.

It landed amongst them and caused them to scatter a small distance, and that drew a conjoined gasp from the team. The flesh crawled on each man's spine, even the powerful Benoi.

Crabs!

They were black in color and about the size of a trashcan lid, with twin front pincers that looked more like tree-limb loppers than the earthly variety of shellfish claws.

Dex couldn't resist the compunction to act, so he gripped the hefty spear and targeted the nearest beast with it.

The ten-inch, triple-edged blade struck home, but glanced off the creature's shell and imbedded in the ground instead. That animal then whipped around extremely quickly and nabbed it with one of its front claws. With just a flick of that appendage, it sliced the hardened spear-shaft in two as easily as cutting a banana...and those claws could open much, much wider!

"Shit!" Ron hissed, now turning to investigate any alternative to direct contact with them.

The others stirred the fire more, causing the ring of eyes to retreat a bit, but Draake saw the same thing Ron had.

"We will be out of fuel in less than half a billot!" he announced, glancing about to his men. "Any ideas?"

"We have to go back!" Ron answered, already back-tracking to the edge of the cliff.

The others hastily joined him but saw only a dead end.

"We can't go that way!" Fraidze said with a shaky voice. "We'd be jumping to our deaths for sure!"

"Not necessarily," Ron countered, hurrying back to the fire.

Utilizing the machete` again, he picked out a couple of small burning disks and returned. Once he found the point where they'd all landed from their last leap out of the plateau of columns, he faced the direction he remembered the final pillar had stood and tossed one of the dung piles. It flew into the fog and hit something, but then they all watched its light disappear to the bottom.

Ron tried again. That one struck the top, he was certain of it, but it too went down and out of sight.

"Get more...hurry!" Ron told them, rushing back to gather the mini-torches.

Two more tries managed to get one to land on top and stay.

"Hurry, Ronin!" Draake said, watching their back as the fire dwindled and the eyes grew closer.

There was just a diffused, dim glow from the burning disk's flame and Ron flipped a few more out before repeating his luck. By then, the campfire was practically out of actual flames and merely had a radiant, red glow. The eyes were close enough that the men could hear the clicking of the pincers and shells rubbing together.

"Son of a...!" Ron groaned at his poor luck. He got another flaming chunk to land on the column, but the first one went out. The heavy moisture was not helping.

Ron decided to take a tremendous risk. He grabbed the end of one of their ropes and tied it about his waist in a flash, handing the other end to Draake. The great Benoi warrior looked at him as if he were mad, but nodded his understanding while wrapping the rope tightly around his wrists. Before the last bit of light went dark, Ron tried to recall just how much effort he'd put into that final jump and leaped out after it with his legs and arms spread wide...hoping to avoid a bone-shattering landing.

When his face entered the fog, all visual sense of direction and attitude were erased instantly. His only guide was that failing glow of firelight, but it appeared to hang in mid- air because he could see absolutely nothing else. The coolness of the night air was shocking and triggered a fleeting recollection of the foggy marshes of his youth, when he used to go out frog gigging with his friends. That of course seemed immensely far away now, like from a lifetime ago, which it might as well have been.

As he drew nearer, Ron quickly realized he'd overshot the jump. His feet landed almost on top of the flaming dung, but it was toward the far side of the column, so when he tried to brake, his heels skated off the edge and he slammed down hard on his back, smacking his head sharply on the stone.

Off the edge he went in a blink, dropping to the length of the safety rope with his mind rattled savagely, only semi-conscious, and blood running down his neck. Draake stood his ground at the other end, feeling the weight of Ron's limp form pull firmly against him, but he could do nothing to help. If he tugged the rope against something too sharp it might cut. If he pulled at the wrong time, it might upset Ron's balance and send him to his death. He had to wait.

"Ronin!" Draake called out. There was no response.

The others joined in quickly and soon there was a din of anxious voices all trying to get through to their stunned partner, but he wouldn't answer.

"Make ready!" Draake ordered as the last bit of fire died away.

The perimeter of the enemy was very close now, and they charged in with a flurry of armored legs clicking sharply against stone.

Fraidze gripped his mace tightly and Dex clutched the dulchira as the men prepared to do battle with the creatures, hastily forming a last-ditch skirmish line to give Draake and Ron more time. No one there made a sound, but screams reached their ears from somewhere to the north. Undoubtedly someone else had made contact with those nighttime hunters as well.

Fraidze held out the last piece of burning material so he could see better, and struck at one of the closest creatures with his spiked club. A chunk chipped off it, spilling its blood, but those around it all bared their fangs at him. They had large mouths for crabs, and each gaping hole was lined with the nastiest looking teeth he'd ever seen. They were like heavy-gauged needles that gnashed together with ghastly precision.

Draake was watching over his shoulder and doubted even his tough hide could withstand those natural meat-grinders.

During the final fanning of their fire, when the crabs had retreated a few peors, Dex had retrieved the broken spear shaft, and suddenly he had a light-bulb moment. While Ron and Draake were working on the retreat, he tucked his weapon under his arm and furiously wound a length of roped tightly about the end of that shaft until it made a good-sized ball. Then he plunged it into the dying embers. The rope caught fire quickly and made a wonderful torch, and that flare-up of light pushed the encroaching horde back once again.

At first he kept it low to stymy an all-out attack, but soon wanted a better look at the enemy, so he held the flaming tinder higher for a few litas...and cringed. It appeared that there were hundreds of them, forming a perimeter that was easily ten peors wide.

Fraidze and Draake both saw the same thing and fear instantly sprang up the spines of the once confident and even egotistical men. They could face any foe, be it man or beast, but with numbers like that, they knew it was only a matter of time.

"Keep them back!" Draake ordered menacingly, trying to bolster the men into action.

Time working alongside that gargantuan being had instilled an automatic response from his underlings that worked well for them all just then. Without a moment's hesitation, Fraidze and Dex attacked the encroaching beasts and hacked off several of their limbs, but those invaders were replaced almost instantly, driving the men back again.

The torch began to dwindle after another few borts passed, causing Dex to become a little more desperate. He suddenly reached out and ripped a large piece of cloth from Fraidze's ragged shirt and quickly wrapped it around the shrinking flames. That worked well to make the torch jumped to life again, but as it lit up the area, they all gasped at the sight. There were thousands of crabs now! The ground was a solid mass of undulating dark bodies as far as the light shown.

"Ronin!" screamed Dex as he retreated to the edge of the cliff. His voice was high and panicky. "Ronin! Help us!"

Fraidze was already stripping the shirt from his body and tearing it into strips to feed the torch. It was a desperate measure and would only buy them a few more borts, but it was something.

"There is movement on the rope!" Draake barked suddenly, feeling strong vibrations.

Ron had heard their pleas and that helped bring him back to full consciousness. He forcefully shook the daze from his pounding head and examined his situation. He was dangling from the target column by the safety line and was enveloped in the thick mist. He reached up and found the rope, righting his attitude straightaway, and then began scaling the column with all haste. When he reached the top once more, he investigated the pinnacle for his bearings. It was flat, roughly ten feet long and four feet across, and had the usual layer of dirt and grit on top but no vegetation to speak of besides moss. It would suffice.

"Draake! Make ready!"

"Ready!" the giant returned...his feet spread wide. He was as solid as the stone they stood upon.

Ron leaned back at a sharp angle and dropped down below the upper surface of the column again, as if he were repelling from it. He locked his feet firmly on the vertical face and the rope pulled taught.

"Fraidze!" Ron said in a loud voice. "We're ready. Come on over!"

There was no hesitation whatsoever. He wanted to be away from those mincing little devils at all costs. Every pulse of Ron's heart sent searing messages to his brain as he braced himself against the big man's weight, but he managed to hold on.

Fraidze made it with no difficulty, although he was scared nearly out of his wits, and when he reached the safety of the column, he didn't dawdle at all. Ron guided him to sit right at the edge of the surface and ran the rope over his hips before pulling it tight once more with his weight. The woven cord bit sharply into him, but Fraidze didn't complain. This was life and death!

The hoard of encroaching beasts were barely a peor away from Draake's position and straining to gain more ground as the blazing cloth began to die out.

"Put the rest of the tinder on the torch...then go!" Draake ordered.

Dex slammed the spear-shaft into the ground and hurriedly fed the dying fire with his two remaining strips, and then he raced across the rope to the column, slipping into position instantly. It would take the three of them to handle the incredible weight of even one of the Benoits, so the men all grappled that thin line like it meant their lives. In fact, the way Ron was tied to it, if they failed, they would probably all be hauled down with him.

The giant captain had held his ground like an anchor, steady and never flinching, while the fire peaked and then diminished much more quickly than he would have guessed. The cloth simply didn't contain enough fuel to sustain it more than a couple of litas, and as it died, they attacked!

"Ready!" Ron called out to the murky night.

At the instant those words were uttered, Draake jumped, hauling away on that lifeline in a fury to shorten the pendulum effect of his situation. Even with that, he struck the column hard but managed to keep his feet out front to soften the blow. Afterward, he flew up the rope easily.

When at last he had a firm grip on the upper lip of the column, he also had the presence of mind to not just release the rope...luckily for the three humans.

"Okay," he said to the invisible men on the other end of that cord. "I have a good handhold."

Ron then allowed himself to relax his straining body and they both scrambled up in a flash.

At that point, they all collapsed to the surface panting heavily and giving thanks to the Creator for their fine fortune.

A few moments later, a soft round of laughter started to rise...a natural result of the release of tension...but a scratching, scuttling sound cut it off in short order.

"Something's on the rope!" Ron announced, feeling the tugging at his waist.

Draake felt for the line quickly and his knife was already out. "ZZT!" They listened closely as the hard shell of the crab creature slid and bounced to the floor of the chasm, and then they sighed in relief once more.

"What the hell was that...are they?" Fraidze asked.

"I don't know. I have never heard of such beasts," Draake admitted.

"They look like some kind of crab," Dex interjected, "but bigger than I've ever seen...and up here, they're nowhere near any water, as far as I can tell.

"I'm not sure," Ron ventured, his head still thudding heavily with every heartbeat, "but I believe they may be Ghordish scavenger beetles. From what I can recall from an information crystal, they come from a class ten-point-nine planet called Ghord, and they feast on anything they can find or bring down. They live under the sand in the daytime and forage at night. We're lucky to have stumbled on their one weakness...light. If we'd have chosen a cold camp, we'd no doubt all be dead!"

"Well, I think we're safe now," Draake said in his usual gruff manner, "so we better try and get some sleep if you can." The danger was over and he was back to all business. "Tomorrow's journey will not likely be any easier."

"There isn't much room on this rock," Dex said in disgust. "I don't see how we can..."

"I think we should lash each other together," suggested Fraidze.

"Yes," agreed the huge leader. "We will sit back-to-back and run the rope around all of us. That way, no one can fall over."

It was a lousy way to have to sleep, but the alternative was to either sleep in shifts so a pair might lie down while the others stood, or try to reach another perch in the pitch-black inkiness of the night.

After a brief period of trial and adjustment, the plan actually worked rather well. No one fell, and everyone eventually drifted off.

### Chapter Forty-one

### Faster

Day 5:

By the break of dawn, they'd each dozed for a few solid billots, so even though their bodies ached from the strange positions of their slumber, they felt at least partially rejuvenated. The sunrise didn't give immediate relief from the fog however, and so the team had to make the jump again with no reference to the landing.

Ron's head wasn't so painful by then so he volunteered to go first again, with the rope still secured to him in case of a mistake. He made it easily and before long they all stood together on firm ground once more, glad that nighttime horror was over.

"We have to speed up!" Draake told the group. "Yesterday's...'events'...cost us much more than they should have, and I cannot even guess where we stand compared to the others, so we must press as hard as we can."

They all nodded and checked their defenses and supplies. The spear was lost, but the other weapons were intact and at the ready. They each carried a nearly full water bladder and three more days' rations (The men had divided up Bart's rations, and Draake had Al's) and there was one full length of rope left, along with a partial other.

With that, they set off at a fast run...which lasted approximately two-hundred peors. What had appeared relatively flat, harmless desert turned out to be a wide band of soft, ultra-fine sand that they all sank to their knees in. And when they crested a small rise in the terrain a billot later, they realized that they had indeed chosen correctly on the previous evening, because that dry, shifting silt went on for another ten hoz. If they had started out into that place and gotten caught by the beetles somewhere in the middle, it would have been disastrous.

As it was, it took them most of that day to forge their way to firmer ground, and when they finally managed to cross that hellacious patch of dust and death, they were out of water, covered in blisters, and had sand in every crevice of their bodies.

The end of it came suddenly, and was another drastic change in topography...to their tremendous joy that time. The abrupt alteration in the alien landscape dropped them down a steep mesa to a lush, green valley with a waterfall and a shallow stream barely two hoz distant.

They all stripped and rinsed out their clothing without a thought of the billions of men, women, and families across the Kreete Empire watching their every move.

After an entire billot of rest, food, and drink, they managed to hike their way to the far end of that valley by nightfall and made camp in a natural overhang of rock, far up another steep face of granite. That night, they built a huge fire at the entrance to their lair, and not a single creature sullied their calm. It was so peaceful, even Ron slept.

Dawn of day six found the Outcasts already three billots into the march and still feeling much more rested than any of the previous days, even despite the short sleep period.

The budding sunrise outlined the rugged terrain perfectly, and finally allowed them to pick up the pace.

Dex was the fastest by a good margin, but Ron was the best scout, so he still held point.

Ron and his speedy teammate set out fast, with Draake and Fraidze following at a manageable pace, and raced ahead to the first tall rise where they scanned the way in earnest.

An important decision had to be made about the route, so they waited for the others and explained the two choices.

"We should go that way," Ron told Draake, pointing over a steep hill almost due south.

"But this is the direction the finish is in," Dex countered, indicating a route southwest "and it is down grade...it will be faster!"

Draake absorbed the information and thought the decision seemed obvious, but he was a wise fellow and wouldn't dismiss Ron's opinion so easily. He swung his yellow eyes over to the smaller man and waited.

"Dex is correct about the location of the finish point, but see the way the land sweeps in just there?"

"Yes."

"Follow that around."

Draake gazed as Ron instructed, as did everyone else.

"Okay, what of it?"

"Do you see any breaks in the slope?"

"No...no I do not."

"That's because it's a box canyon...a natural roadblock. The weathering of the surrounding hills dumps debris down-slope and fills the low areas. Most likely if we go that way, we will face steep grades of loose rocks that would be extremely difficult, if not impossible or deadly, to climb.

"If we take the higher ground to the south, we should be able to skirt along that ridge and snake our way out the other side through that pass, there."

The men scratched their heads because they didn't see the subtleties Ron did, and then they looked to the great Benoi.

"I must admit I do not see what you mean, Ronin, but I will leave it in your hands. You have proven yourself too many times not to hold my trust now. Lead on."

That was it. Dex didn't even try to change his mind. In fact, he didn't even know why he'd questioned Ron's choice in the first place. The guy was like a human GPS!

Up and over the hill Ron cruised with his teammates tight on his heels, winding his way through the terrain as if he'd lived there his whole life. He found his way by instinct, watching for the types of trees and vegetation that grew, as well as the rock formations. These were stable, old mountains that had seen eons of storms and thousands of animals trafficking their surfaces.

It was arduous but not treacherous travel and they made good speed, but after a couple of billots his followers began to question the route. There had been too many turns and workarounds to keep track.

"There's no way we're going in the right direction," Dex finally said to Fraidze, keeping his voice low. He didn't want to admit it, but he was hopelessly lost and confused. "We should be way over there," he added pointing to the east.

"I don't know," Fraidze replied, equally as muddled. "If I had to guess, I'd say we back-tracked! I'd swear we've been over this way before!"

Draake was too far ahead of them to hear, but he remained quiet and unruffled.

Ten borts later, they rounded a tight turn in the narrow ridge they'd been crossing and caught up to Ron talking with Draake. Ron seemed bored with the pace, but he knew he couldn't go all out because Fraidze would never make it.

"It will be easier from here on," Ron told the giant. "Right through that little pass and down into the valley. We should make it before midday easily."

"What?" Fraidze asked, huffing and holding his side, trying to breathe. "That's the same place we came in at!"

Ron turned and looked at the man with an easy, "Don't be ridiculous!" look on his face. "No, that is where we came in!" he said, pointing to the exact rocky knoll they'd stood on while discussing the canyon earlier.

The members of the team all stared at the point almost six hoz away and then it hit them. They were precisely where he said they'd be before beginning. Their stunned faces spoke volumes. Ron just smiled and led on.

Down the game trail they wound their way until breaking out onto a crest above the open grassland of the inner valley floor. It reminded Ron a great deal of the land east of the Grand Tetons, where the mighty peaks gave way to the open, relatively flat ground of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

They stopped where they were for a quick bite of lunch and to catch their breaths, all staring out at the view of hoz after hoz of knee-high, waving grass. It was incredibly serene and beautiful. The auburn color of the prairie looked amazing set against the emerald sky, accented with just a few clouds floating about here and there. Ron spotted half a dozen specks drifting about high overhead too, and knew they were some type of bird, but could only hope they were nothing like the giant aerial hunters of Kaskle's homeworld. If they were, the finish of this event would be exciting...and bloody.

As the team descended the final thousand feet to the meadowland, they all began to get excited. If they were on track, this was the last day of the event. Soon they would know just how well they'd fared against the best teams in the Triad...and just how deadly this event had been.

The closer they got, the more the gently undulating grassland peaked Ron's wary senses. His keen eyes scoured the nearby land with intense scrutiny, constantly wondering if more hidden threats might be one step away, but to no end. When they finally reached it, he detected no danger, no signs of predatory hunters, and in fact, not a hint of any threat whatsoever.

"What is your assessment, Ronin?" Draake asked in a heavy pant. The altitude was still a bit high for the Ultra even though the humans felt strong and confident.

"I have nothing to report that should give us pause," Ron admitted. "It can't be more than half a day to the finish, and I think it is a foot race from here."

"Good," the captain agreed. "Dex, this is your stage! Do what you can and we'll be along as fast as we can manage."

The ebony man from Tropia's Eathanius Moon took off without hesitation, his long strides opening up to a point that even Ron couldn't dream to match. He was half-a-head taller than Ron and his legs were nearly six inches longer, and he was born to run! The rest of the team watched in awe as he loped along as gracefully as a gazelle.

Dex was incredibly smooth and fluid in his motions, with not a single unnecessary movement to burn excess energy. His people had tremendous stamina too, with lungs a third more voluminous than other humans his size.

The others immediately set off in his wake but he moved at such a blistering speed that Ron merely shook his head before dropping into a pace he could withstand. He too was a machine of perfect bipedal efficiency, and though he couldn't hope to match Dex's speed, he knew he could last for billots at his own without difficulty.

Although Jarhress's gravity was weak compared to Draake's homeworld, the Benoi people were not distance runners by any stretch of the imagination, their legs being the shortest part of their stature. But even at that, he equaled Ron's pace because of his sheer strength and determination. They would all just have to see how long he could maintain it.

Fraidze was the slowpoke of the team and he knew it, so when the first billot passed, he wasn't surprised or disheartened that the others were far ahead. He would simply press on as fast as he could. The scoring was such that the order of finish could help the team even if the entire group did not place first, so he didn't belittle the others for not waiting.

Ron's earlier wary concern about hidden dangers amid the tall grass indeed turned out to be unwarranted this time, and after several billots of fast-paced running, they realized this section was just as they had surmised...more about stamina than anything else.

They reached the far side of the long valley late in the day, unimpeded by hazards other than fatigue and the damage to Draake's legs.

As they cleared the final roll of the meadow's expanse, the last three hoz of the race was laid out before them, and Ron nearly cheered.

The end was clearly within sight, as was the half-moon shaped stands soaring a hundred feet into the air and holding eight-hundred-thousand screaming spectators.

For the participants, the finish of the race was a small circle of about twenty peors with thirty five chutes leading away from it...the number of remaining teams still in the competition.

Each team was guided into their chute by long funnel of streamers draped from stakes driven into the ground. Those funnels flared out a hoz onto the prairie to match the path that each team had been assigned.

When Ron caught a look, Dex was halfway down that chute, still moving with incredible ease, and the first Kreete team member was off to his right, nearly even with him.

Just then, as if Dex could tell his comrade was watching, he raised his leg tempo by twenty-five percent, surging forward enough for Ron to make out from a full two and a half hoz away. Ron's heart leaped! He scanned the Kreete and saw no surge...in fact, he would swear that the fellow actually stutter-stepped.

Ron smiled broadly as he flew down the slope, his own adrenaline now beginning to build. That was the mark of a defeated opponent. Seeing his foe accelerate and not being able to match it was devastating.

Ron picked out the next Kreete and saw he was slightly ahead of where Ron was.

It was time to move!

The pack he'd carried for the past six and a half days slipped from his shoulders without breaking stride, shrugged to the side of the trail in one deft move. Two litas later, the machete` belted to his waist was gone as well, and then he took a few shortened, hopping steps and was out of his boots as well.

Ron flicked his head back to see Draake trailing half a hoz behind him and flashed his hand in a wave. Then he leaned downhill into a new pace, one that he'd been saving for that exact moment.

At a hoz from the beginning of the chute Ron began to really churn. He'd been running for four billots at a strong lope that would chew up the distance, but now it was time to turn it loose. He calmed his nerves and concentrated on breathing in a methodical, deep, rhythmic cadence. He relaxed his arms and allowed them to droop a little more than normal, conserving energy. Next came his mind. As the ground turned as flat as a table, Ron was in a new state of awareness. There were no teammates. There were no spectators. There were no dangers, or worries, or plans. There was only the pace.

The Kreete team's second man had already entered their chute and was flying along, his four-foot-long legs almost doubling the stride Ron could manage, but Ron didn't care. His legs might have to work faster, his breaths quicker, but he would not concede.

Into the chute he charged, two hundred peors behind his opponent, but that didn't matter either. He was at max-cruise and gaining. With deep gulps of air slamming into his lungs and supreme focus on his stride, Ron slowly reeled in the taller, more massive opponent.

With half a hoz to go, Ron was only fifty peors behind him. The screams from the crowd were clear and pronounced by then, and Ron saw Dershum swing his massive head around to get a glimpse of his pursuer. His silver eyes jumped open wider than Ron would have imagined possible, and then he faced forward once more and increased the pace.

Ron's eyes lit with the realization of Dershum's fear, and so he followed the up-tick. Time and again Ron had done something the Kreete thought impossible...and so now he knew exactly what the scout feared most...defeat to a human man right in front of his own kind!

A bort later, Ron was close enough to hear the strained panting of the scout. He could even see a slight break in the rhythm Dershum swung his arms. Instead of staying relaxed and controlled, the scout was reaching higher and swinging harder, trying to force his body to accelerate again, but it would not. That gave Ron even more of a boost.

At a quarter hoz to go, Ron was barely a step back. He was gasping now too, and on the ragged edge of what he could maintain, but the finish line was in sight...and so was his adversary.

The two beings were barely ten peors apart by then, the chutes having converged to a point where each could clearly gauge their challenger, and the crowd was roaring so loudly that the vibration drowned out the sounds of their labored breaths.

Which of these tremendous athletes would have enough left to beat the other? Or would one simply drop from exhaustion?

On they raced, closer and closer to the frantic fans by then. Most of the screaming was for support of the underdog...Ron...but the only shouts he could make out clearly were from the closest group; the Kreete section, and they were of one thing; "He is gaining!" they bellowed.

Ron was feeling terribly drained by that point and his legs were beginning to tingle in that dull, unsteady way when exhaustion had finally won out...until the clamor changed suddenly. Almost at once, a clear chant rose up above the Kreete's growling din.

That chant was begun by a single person...a diminutive blonde woman of exceptional beauty who'd leaped onto her seat and drawn the attention of all those around her. That little woman yelled out a single word that she repeated without hesitation. It was taken up like a rolling, expanding wave of sound.

"ITSU...ITSU...ITSU," they shouted...and Ron felt a breath of hope.

At two hundred peors from the finish, a fresh surge of adrenaline leaked into his veins and the burning of his lungs grew faint. He was a machine once more, and that machine was running on 130 octane!

Ron felt his feet lighten immediately, and so they quickened again. He drew dead even with the scout who glanced over with a desperate, disbelieving expression. He too reached into the vast reservoir of his mighty physique and upped the pace, his last attempt to thwart this lesser creature, and for a fleeting moment it appeared to have worked...but it was not to be.

At a hundred peors from the finish, Ron saw Dex leaping up and down as if he were insane. He was screaming encouragement and begging his peoples'gods to grant his friend the strength to endure to the finish.

Ron heard nothing. He felt the agony of the long race fall away in a single moment of exhilaration...and then he flew! With sixty peors to go, Ron burst forward in a full-out sprint with all the speed of a fresh set of legs...and he pulled ahead of the Kreete in a rush.

The stands erupted when he crossed the line three steps ahead of Dershum, and then they began celebrating the most unexpected finish the Games had ever witnessed.

Ron's momentum sent him crashing into Dex hard...almost bowling him over...and then they both staggered around with quivering legs as Ron fought desperately to catch his breath. A few borts later though, they were back at the end of the chute to cheer on Draake as he thundered through the final phase of the Steeplechase event. Two more of the Kreete team had finished between Ron and him, but he had performed admirably considering the thin air of the contest and his personal injuries.

Then it was up to Fraidze, and he needed to beat his opponent for the Outcasts to win the event.

The fourth Kreete was right there with him, making it another nail-biting finish, but he was showing pronounced favor to his right leg. Either his ankle or calf had been damaged, and it was hampering him badly, causing a gait that was both awkward and excruciating.

Fraidze' face was bright red, a sign that he'd forced himself far beyond what he thought he could do, but it didn't stop him. The huge muscles in his arms were tense and strained as he closed in on the Kreete and at the last step he was leaning so far forward that he fell flat on his face across the line, expelling all the air from his struggling lungs.

He lay their panicked and gasping while Ron and Dex flipped him over to help, though there was little they could do.

Fortunately a mednaut dropped to his side quickly and plugged a half-faced mask firmly over his mouth and chin before flooding him with pure oxygen with ten pounds of pressure behind it. The surge expanded Fraidze's lungs once more and he lay there for a long time just gulping in the sweet, life-giving gas.

He then patted Dex and Ron on the shoulder and signaled that he was okay, so they joined him on the ground in a seated position, allowing their own quivering legs a chance to begin recuperating.

Fraidze's race was reviewed for several borts and eventually ruled a tie, however, since Draake had finished ten litas behind the third Kreete, the Destroyers took the title.

It was disheartening to the team, but the overall points remained incredibly close, so they weren't completely dissatisfied.

By that time their massive captain was sitting comfortably as well, inside a med-tent. He was being attended to by a team of doctors who'd already sanitized and encased his right leg in a dermal regeneration cast to rebuild his burned skin, and were inspecting the other. He held a half-emptied, five gallon tankard of water in his left hand, and he grinned like a madman at the scoreboard on the viewer inside the tent.

More than two billots later, the third place team crested the final hill and headed for their chute. They were bloodied, haggard, and exhausted, but they finished nonetheless.

Twenty-two more teams straggled in over the final eighteen billots of the contest, before the time limit expired at midday of day seven. Any team caught out on the course then was ejected from further competition and their homeworld was punished. That usually meant economic hardships and vast slave collections. The Lords thought such punitive measures would instill a desire for the teams to press as hard as they possibly could...and it worked. Most of those lagging groups were either too injured to carry on, or dead.

It was finally over. They only had to wait for the official results after that. It had been a grueling, deadly contest, and those who had endured looked more angry than grateful for their good fortune. Too many of their friends, countrymen, and even family members, had perished during that hellish, week-long ordeal...all for the sake of sport at the Lords command.

Draake's team had finished in second place, but with Dex crossing the line first, the Outcasts had claimed the highest glory once again...and their total score was so close behind the Destroyers that the entire contingent of Kreete didn't even stay for the third place team's finish. They stormed off in a great huff, completely disgusted with their representatives and in no mood to listen to the deafening, cheering crowd who now supported the Outcasts as if they were blood kin.

Ron and his teammates basked in the glory of their stardom, not so much for their own personal egos, but for the united show of support against their hated enemy. And when the holo-image hanging over the finish line showed Al's and Bart's pictures, the entire crowd dropped into hushed silence at their having made the ultimate sacrifice. It was extremely moving.

When the time came, Prime Minister Ardvante Deitrum concluded the event with a long speech that praised and exulted thanks to the Lords for allowing Jarhress the tremendous privilege to host a segment of the Triad Games. And even though the Kreete chose not to attend, no word was spoken about them barely edging out the competition. Additionally, one of their elite squad...Mirdesh Galvany...had perished somewhere out there in the wild country as well, further accentuating their lack of God-like immortality.

All things considered, even with the win, it had been a very demoralizing event for the Lords. It was no wonder that they wished to move on as quickly as possible.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, the Outcasts were ferried back to their ship where they could rest and begin the healing process anew. After all, there were still three more events yet to come.

When all was totaled, every representing group had lost at least one of their members, including the Kreete. Four teams failed to get anyone to complete the course on time. Two teams had perished completely, and fourteen others were down half or more of their original number.

The Games of the Triad were merciless!

### Chapter Forty-two

### Snow and Ice

Following eight days of interstellar travel, the Vastoria's shuttle began its landing cycle to the surface of Cildera, a class nine-point-nine planet in the Moodara Sector. It was the lightest gravity world hosting any of the Games.

The men were all awake as they broke through the atmosphere and sat at the dining table watching the scene on a large viewer.

"Would you look at that?" Dex said with a husky exhalation, his voice filled with awe.

Fraidze whistled softly at the sight.

The planet was obviously locked in the phase of an ice age with fully two thirds of the entire surface covered with a white crust of frozen water in all its forms...snow, hard ice, soft ice, and massive rivers of glacial flow.

Ron immediately recalled his time in the high peaks of Caron, and a shiver surged through his body, but he said nothing.

"Damn those Kreete luutle suckers!" Draake muttered. (A luutle is an extremely disgusting, carrion eating amphibian that lives in foul-smelling mud bogs on the Benoi home planet.)

"Why," Fraidze asked. "Not that I have anything against insulting those filthy dragen whores."

"This world will be impossible for me to navigate," the giant replied. "If there is anything other than, thick, hard ice, I will essentially be eliminated from competition.

"And I know they will have planned for that exact contingency," he added in a deep growl.

"So that's that then," Dex said; his hopes of somehow pulling off the impossible feat of winning thoroughly crushed. "It's over."

"No," Ron chimed in, a bit more forcefully than he meant to. "Remember the rules. This is the fifth event...counting down from seven...so only the first three members of the team will count at the finish. Any group can begin this challenge with as little as three participants...less if the rest are all dead...but having more is no advantage. We have three men, so Draake will just have to sit this one out. No doubt we will be at a disadvantage against the Kreete, but we'll just have to find a way to make it work!"

From there, they all watched the ship glide over the only section of the world that showed greenery...the equator...and fly five-hundred hoz into the icy expanse of the southern hemisphere.

"Get started sorting your cold-weather gear," Draake finally ordered after they touched down.

When the team stood wrapped in their best, high-tech thermal layers, they followed Draake out the hatch and into a gale-force wind that blew snow and sleet at a sharp angle...and did its best to push them with it.

There was a well-marked path of dark dye in the snow and so they followed that to the rendezvous point...a large, round building that looked like nothing more than a gray blister on the landscape. Its sides swept all the way down to the ground, allowing for no possibility that the wind might catch hold of it.

The structure had clearly outlined doors stationed all around, but the trail they followed led them to a pair that was on the down-wind side, no doubt purposely selected, Ron presumed.

Inside the building, the temperature was comfortable enough to allow the team members to shed their heavy gear, down to merely thick clothing. Ron estimated the temp was somewhere in the area of forty degrees Fahrenheit.

The domed building was the size of a football stadium but had no seating areas at all. It was a hangar of some sort and had been built very recently. The Triad had undoubtedly added it for the competition.

Draake escorted his squad to a place marked with a holographic depiction of their team's logo hanging above it. Once there, they found no instructions and no representative, so they merely sat on the floor and waited.

A little more than two billots later, when every team was assembled beneath their own crests, a large hovering Cnaut drifted into the center of the space and generated a remarkable picture of a man. He was a dark-skinned fellow with black eyes and long black hair. He looked tall and slim, and wore formal attire of a long white coat over pale-blue trousers. The projection appeared to be hanging directly in front of Draake and was gazing right at him, but Ron looked at the team across from them and they stared at the image as if it were right before them. Apparently, the image faced each person in the room, no matter their location.

"Remarkable!" Ron thought.

A moment later the image sprang to life.

"Welcome!" the man said, flashing a grand smile of perfect, ultra-white teeth.

At that instant, the walls of the structure suddenly burst into life as well. Every conceivable inch of the entire place was filled with the image of screaming fans, and the cheers of them slammed into the participants like an explosion.

It was several borts before the orator could speak again.

"I am Eamone Yaars," the image announced finally, "Ambassador of Cildera, from the Shomone people of the southern region.

"We are extremely honored to be hosting this fifth stage of the Triad Games, and humbly thank the Kreete Lords for the grand opportunity."

Ron couldn't suppress a growl at that...and quickly noticed that he wasn't the only one either.

"This challenge will pit the players' stamina and determination against the harsh environment of our winter. Each team will be required to traverse seven-hundred hoz of our most treacherous terrain with only the assistance of a team of dogs and a sled of supplies. Seven checkpoints have been set up, and each must be made in order to remain in the competition and get the directions to the next way station.

"In order to minimize the weight of the provisions, each team will need to select only three members who will compete. It normally would be four...to allow for a mishap or injury...however, our weather has turned exceedingly violent recently and we do not expect it to let up, so we feel compelled to offer each team a guide to keep them from getting lost. After all, this is a race, not a survival event. And since each sled can haul only one person at a time, the ultimate test of endurance and perseverance will not be unduly hampered.

"Now, every sled will be assigned a surveillance-bot to follow it, and you may utilize its emergency protocol if you become distressed and require rescue. However, in doing so, you will forfeit any points you may have accumulated up to that point and be tagged with a 'Did Not Finish'. Also, obviously, you will be eliminated from further competition.

"Are these instructions clear to all?"

"What about weapons?" asked the leader of the Marisiles.

"Every competitor will be furnished a small knife for cutting rope, meat, and the like, but that is the extent of it. And to be clear...attacking another team is strictly forbidden! Beyond that, the guides are responsible for whatever they may feel they need."

"How are we to be assigned a team and guide?" asked one of the Messui members. They were large men that looked like they could have come straight from Earth. They were currently in twelfth place.

"Normally we would allow a random selection, but since we had to modify the event, it was mandated that the selection should be done by order of standings in the competition. Thusly, that is the order of choice."

A holographic list appeared next to Eamone showing the current position each team was in. The Kreete squad was first, followed closely by the Outcasts, and then far back was third place, and so on. The next ten teams were all posting fairly competitive numbers with each other, and even though none had their sights on actually winning, placement was important because significant awards went to the first seven finishers.

There was quite a bit of grumbling at the announcement, but no one was irate enough to speak out against the plan.

"Also, to make the event even more equal, you will all be required to dress in the native garb used here on Cildera."

That set off a firestorm of complaints from nearly everyone participating because the planet was not nearly as advanced as many of the teams' and they feared the "backward peoples'" accouterments would substantially hinder their chances...and possibly end their lives.

It finally came down the fact that the Kreete Lords had imposed the rules, so they would have to just deal with it.

"If you will all file out in the order you are called, you will each be allowed ten borts to select your guide and sled team."

With that, they began.

The Kreete team went out immediately and Draake took up his position as next in line.

"Ron, you will take command of this event," he said. "It will be your responsibility to pick your guide."

Ron would have loved to have been able to exchange ideas about strategy, but with no clue as to what they were facing, he fell silent and waited.

"Outcasts!" called the announcer when the Kreete's time had elapsed.

Ron led Dex and Fraidze away with confidence, leaving the Benoi captain alone to be escorted to some other location. He didn't like it one bit, but had to relinquish their future hopes to the humans.

"They will do well," Draake tried to tell himself. "It is simply a race."

Draake's abstinent, suspicious side turned on him immediately though...and angrily. "Don't be a fool, Draake Tarbold!" it growled. "Against the Kreete, there is no such thing." He then walked off in a foul mood.

The three men continued to the indicated position with absolutely no idea about what to expect, and prayed their guide would do his job well.

Ron's crew followed a native fellow, Kin Shoo, down some steps and into a long ice tunnel cut through the upper section of the permafrost. That long corridor eventually ended up rising another set of stairs to face a wide set of double doors. After another short wait, the doors opened to their escort and in they went.

That space was much smaller than the huge dome had been, but still was rather expansive. It was a cavern cut into solid rock and apparently served as a staging area for expeditions outside. The temperature was much colder in there and the floor was covered with deep, firmly packed snow...so as not to damage equipment primarily designed for that surface.

At each end of the roughly cylindrical cavity were large doors that slid aside when needed, and numerous smaller doors along the length of it which led deeper into the rock strata. The entire area was brightly lit from above, yet without any form of heating, it also stayed well below freezing.

Strung out across the cave were the dog teams. There were thirty in all; one for each of the twenty-five remaining participating teams, plus five for posterity. Each man was fully dressed for the outside world, and his animals were tied to stakes in front of the sled. (The beasts were staked in place to keep them from fighting with the other teams.)

Kin Shoo then began his explanation of the choices.

"Each of these teams has a Champion Musher and would be a fine choice to guide you. They are arranged in a selected order. The first ten have the fastest animals, and on any particular day it is a toss-up as to who would win a sprint.

"The next twelve have less speed but greater endurance. The following eight are the strongest and can pull heavier loads. And from there to the end, the beasts are generally good all around.

"Any of these teams can get you to victory in the contest you are about to begin because they will not slow you down. The deciding factor will be completely up to you and your men's ability to keep up with 'them'!"

Ron, Fraidze, and Dex each knew that he was right about that, but still had to make a choice...and wanted to get the best they could.

"You have ten borts to choose, starting...now."

Fraidze pulled them aside and began his pitch for the strongest team, so that they would not need to slow for hills and rougher sections. Dex wanted the faster dogs because the men were heavy-worlders, thinking they could help with the more strenuous areas themselves.

Ron broke away from them as they argued and approached the mushers. He met the eyes of several of them before asking one a question.

"Can you beat the Kreete's squad?"

"Absolutely!" the fellow replied. "There is not a finer team on the planet! We will have them passed on the first day."

Ron asked that query several more times down the line and received nearly identical responses each time. He swept his gaze across the group once more and spotted a lone team that was not on the front row. The animals all looked calm and rested, not excited and noisy like the rest. The leader knelt on the snow at the front of the sled. He seemed to be praying.

Ron slipped through the ranks of the teams and approached, drawing everyone's gaze as he went. When he stood one step from the musher, the fellow opened his eyes and slowly looked up Ron's tall frame. He was completely covered in outside gear with only a narrow avenue left open for the fellow to see, as if anticipating a quick exit back into the cold. They locked eyes for a brief moment, and then the musher leaped to his feet...but said nothing.

Kin slid up next to Ron and stood idly by.

"Why is this team not with the others?" Ron asked casually, his gaze covering the man and his charges.

"This team lost its musher earlier this cycle and, although the animals are champions, their leader is unproven."

Ron saw anger jump into the eyes of the fellow, the insult felt deeply. This person was clearly passionate, yet kept his temper in check, showing intelligence as well.

"Can you beat the Kreete team?" Ron asked.

The leader looked at Ron's escort, removed his gloves, and then signed a response.

"This one does not speak, and does not understand your strange accent," Kin told Ron. "Perhaps another team might be more suited to your..."

Ron did not falter. He felt...something.

"Please ask for me," Ron insisted, and then Kin signed the question.

The musher paused for a moment before replying. Then the answer flew from his small hands in quick, yet smooth language.

"Ganare` says; 'I have no idea, Lord Itsu. 'I know nothing of their abilities, nor your team's. Forgive me.'"

Ron was impressed with the honesty of the fellow. His attention flicked quickly to the passive nature of the animals, and he questioned that.

"How is it that the dogs are so calm? Obviously the rest are not."

Ron watched closely as Kin motioned the words and the musher replied instantly. The translator in Ron's brain had already begun to interpret it. Kin Shoo spoke again.

"They are Benchini. Other beasts do not concern them."

"And just what are Benchini?"

"They are wild beasts, Lord Itsu."

Ron was surprised at that. Wild animals don't normally consort with people at all.

Ron turned to the musher. "How can you control them?" he signed.

The musher's eyes flew open wide and he paused, and then his hands burst into motion at Ron with his answer.

"These creatures are not the monsters the others think they are," he said while sweeping his eyes across the numerous glares that were shot back his way. "They are smart, fast, immensely strong, and noble, and they will do whatever is asked of them as long as they feel respected. You see, the others are right about one thing; they cannot be controlled. They must 'want' to help. They must be your partner on the trail."

"You seem very comfortable around them," Ron told him, noticing that the animals were not even staked in place.

"I have raised them all from their mother's tit. I was not allowed to race them, but I was the one who trained them to pull, and to work as a team."

Ron glanced at his escort, looking for some validation of his claims.

"It is true, Lord Itsu," Kin acknowledged. "The Opala family has produced some of the best teams to ever hit the trails."

"Why were you forbidden to race?"

"I was not the eldest."

Ron's time was running out by then. He needed to make a decision.

"Can your team run with them," Ron signed, throwing his thumb back over his shoulder.

The musher through his shoulders back stiffly. "This team will run them all into the ground!" he signed in grand fashion for all to see.

Ron noticed none from behind bid the claim false.

"Good," Ron returned. "I choose this team," he told Kin Shoo.

The tiny musher gasped, and then burst with joy at the chance he'd been given. Each of the twelve dogs swiveled their heads about in unison to see what was up, and Ron would have sworn he saw a ripple of anticipation sweep through them. They seemed to understand the call to duty.

From behind him, Ron heard a number of grumblings, but he ignored it.

"Be ready to depart in two billots," Kin signed.

"We will be ready in one!"

Ron then waved at Fraidze and Dex, and together they strolled away to the next stop...the preparation room.

### Chapter Forty-three

### Preparations?

A man ran up to the Outcasts' escort on their way out of the holding station and spoke briefly with Kin Shoo.

"I have been summoned, Lord Itsu," Kin told Ron, "but Olage here will guide you to the next phase."

Ron nodded his acceptance and they all strolled away, their minds filled with anxiety about the upcoming race. None of them hailed from a particularly cold climate, so they worried that their ignorance would likely be a key factor.

After another long walk down a different, yet identical frozen tunnel, the trio was delivered to a new destination...one that they all immediately loved.

The place was very warm and had three pools of steaming water spread across a room twenty peors long and ten wide. Their escort stayed by the door until the men were in the room, and then...

"If you will stand each by one of the pools, your attendants will be along in a moment," he said, bowing deeply and backing out the door.

The men glanced quickly at each other, but before they had time to question their predicament, three doors...one across from each of the pools...opened. Then Dex's and Fraidze's mouths dropped open as they beheld a sight that any man who'd been locked up for years could only dream about.

Through each doorway walked a heavenly female figure, and they were all completely nude. They were each dark-skinned, the color of cocoa, and had long, straight black hair down to their waist.

Without a word, the ladies stepped to the side, and then two of them pulled a curtain silently across the stone floor until the room had been divided into three separate sections.

The third woman approached Ron haughtily, her black eyes seeming to blaze as she stared at him. When she was within arm's reach, she stopped, looking up at him from a foot and a half beneath his gaze.

"I am Aeriana," she said with a high, lilting voice. "With your permission, I am here to prepare you for the climate of this world."

Ron stared down at the woman and tried to remain stoically focused on his upcoming trial, but it had been a long while since his last "encounter", and so he found it exceedingly difficult.

"P-pre-prepare me?" he stammered. "I don't understand. I thought we were sent here to dress in the native garb."

"Yes," Aeriana replied sweetly, "but there is much more to it than just the outer trappings. If you would be so kind, Master Itsu...would you please strip."

Ron was unquestionably more than a little captivated by her incredibly desirable appearance, so he moved slowly and his fingers stumbled a bit.

"Or I could do it!" Aeriana chirped, surging forward eagerly and assisting him with the layers.

Ron caught a whiff of her scented body and his heart rate bolted. She smelled absolutely delicious! His eyelids pressed down tightly before he even exhaled, fighting desperately to concentrate, but it was as if he were trying to climb a greased hill. Even his iron will could catch no traction.

Aeriana reached up as high as she could and his coat slid free. Next, she slipped his outer trousers down and sat him on a bench to begin on his boots. Ron leaned over and triggered the release of the footgear and his nose was almost touching her hair.

He started to inhale, and then stopped abruptly, nearly swooning with an overpowering, unbridled desire. She was absolutely intoxicating!

Aeriana then stood right between Ron's legs and her small hands slid over his wide chest. She was searching for the magnetic clasp that held the fabric together, but Ron felt so much more. It was like she was electrified. Her light touch sent waves of intense sensations through him that were impossible to ignore. She smiled at him warmly while his heart raced onward, and then softly asked for help in a voice that felt like a downy feather to his ears.

Ron reached up for the clasp with trembling fingers, still trying to understand why he couldn't control his lust for that little woman. His attraction to his wife had been intense and powerful in the budding years of his adulthood. His draw to Cache had been incredibly strong as well, surrounded by the unending turmoil they faced. And his bonding with the compassionate, heavenly angel, Josylinia Gitove was nearly overwhelming...but all those emotional ties put together were nothing like this!

It was as if his need for the pleasure of her over-wrote all other thoughts...as if nothing else existed but Aeriana...and his craving for her.

She took the edges of his shirt when they opened, and seductively eased the garment off. He was breathing quick and fast at that point, his eyes never leaving her face...a face that seemed to grow more beautiful with each passing moment. Next went his pants, which left him as bared to her as she was to him.

She smiled up at him when she unveiled his obvious desire for her.

"Now, if you would come with me into the pool," she told him, pulling his hand with hers and heading for the steps into the huge basin.

Ron moved on shaking, unstable legs, and his entire body now vibrating hard with waves of emotion. He soon found out that the liquid was not, in fact, water, but rather was thin, clear oil. Luckily, the steps were designed with a surface that gave excellent traction. His mind noted the difference in the fluid, but he didn't care at all. His focus was that curvaceous creature towing him along.

"This is jinaary oil," Aeriana told him when they were both in the tub. "It will bond with the surface of your skin and help your body fight the cold...like an extra insulator."

Ron just stared at her. He heard but did not...could not...reply.

Aeriana urged Ron down until he was sitting on the bottom, and then she dunked his head as well. He didn't resist her in the least.

When she pulled him up, and was standing directly in front of him again, she was on one of the steps leading out of the pool. Her firm, succulent breasts glistened brightly from the oil and were barely inches from his lips. He took in all her undeniable attributes slowly, dully...his eyes inspecting and caressing the peaks and valleys of her flawless skin.

She then leaned in closely and noted the glazed look on his face and his hugely dilated pupils, so she placed her hands on either side of his wide jaw.

"That is all that is required of this place, Itsu. Your body is now ready for the long week ahead. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

She practically whispered that last question...her breath tickling him.

Ron did not respond...he couldn't even think.

"I am totally at your disposal, my Lord."

Ron's heart felt like it would explode, it beat so fast.

Aeriana eased forward close enough so that her lips brushed his. "May I pleasure you, Master?" she asked, her eyes three-quarters shut. "Please...I beg you!"

By then he vibrated so much that the surface of the pool shimmered.

"Take me!" she then told him forcefully.

Ron's control was so thin that he practically attacked her, his motion fast enough to cause a wave to splash out onto the walkway. He crushed her lips to his and pressed her body against him harshly, not even caring if he hurt her. He had to have her...had to be inside her.

The thin oil made for a scintillating lubricant that somehow enhanced the experience and over the following two billots allowed for almost nonstop copulation.

Ron simply could not get enough of her.

Finally though, Aeriana called a halt to the endless pleasure in an odd way.

There was an ornamental plate at the edge of the pool, and when she pressed it, the panel lit up and a chime rang out. Instantly the door she'd walked through earlier opened and another lovely woman strode forward.

Aeriana then gripped Ron's face in her little hands and gave him a new order.

"My Lord, please allow me a moment."

Ron could barely process the request enough to pause, but when he did, his chest heaved from the sensual exercise. Aeriana pressed herself away from him wearily and staggered slowly toward the steps while the new girl eased by her and went straight to Ron.

She slipped into his still outstretched hands and stroked his forehead gently. Then she leaned her cheek to his and nuzzled him.

Ron breathed in her scent and his mind blurred once more.

She was even more desirable than Aeriana!

"My name is Ilsa," she whispered, her breath going right into his open mouth.

"May I pleasure you?" she asked, just as Aeriana had.

Ron's fingers slipped to her waist where they rested lightly on her skin. Again they trembled with anticipation.

"Take me!" she ordered in a sweet, husky way.

Ron attacked her with as much exuberance as the first.

Two billots later, Ilsa swapped with Breah, and then she with Carli.

By the time the door opened again, Ron was completely exhausted, yet still he fought to continue. The incomprehensible pleasure of the first two ladies had long since gone...replaced by a growing irritation, and then by all out pain. But he simply could not stop.

Suddenly though...like the electric shock from a cattle prod...his drive to carry on ceased abruptly with the cracking of a single egg-sized capsule. The smell was as strong as a skunk's scent and so pungent that he recoiled as if struck by a weapon. It filled his nose and mouth with such a foul odor that he rolled away and wretched...his stomach so empty he couldn't even vomit.

Ron moaned and snorted and spit, but the smell would not leave his senses. His eyes watered heavily for the next few borts, so the world around him morphed and floated in a dim blur, but after another couple borts passed, he finally could make out sounds again. It was the sounds of angry words.

"GET OUT, YOU DRAGEN WHORES!" rang a somewhat familiar voice, but Ron couldn't quite identify it. "HE'S IN HERE!"

"Itsu!" cried the voice.

Then Ron heard another set of footfalls.

"Check the other sections," ordered another person.

"They are here as well."

"Itsu! Can you understand me?"

Ron's mental faculties returned enough to realize it was Jazzimeridon.

"Yes," Ron grunted. He was so dehydrated the sound barely made it out his lips.

"Bring some water," she told the other person.

"What...happened?" Ron managed to say, his eyes still so watery he couldn't see.

"Those dragen low-bellies," Jazz's voice hissed. "The Kreete managed to get you into this room that isn't supposed to exist, and exchanged the normal preparatory team with their own...a bevy of Ooldartic pleasure girls."

Ron was still fighting the effects of his delirium and the more recent, horrific assault to his olfactory glands, so the explanation was difficult to follow. "Ooldar...what?"

"Ooldartic pleasure girls. They have been painstakingly bred over centuries on their homeworld to be the most desirable, and insatiable women in the Triad. They stay in a constant state of 'heat' and exude pheromones so powerful that they overwrite and overwhelm male humans' reason centers, and leave them totally incapacitated until the woman is removed for several billots.

"I see that you have survived them quite well though," she added sarcastically. "The other men apparently collapsed after the second exchange."

Ron then glanced about, wiping his eyes clear enough to take in the view, although still quite blurry. Dex and Fraidze were prone on the floor, each next to two lovely ladies, and he saw the remains of his own conquests scattered about the padded floor, sleeping as well.

"Get back into the oil!" Jazz ordered. "It will help with what must be a...how should I put it...a 'tender' problem?"

Ron tried to rise, but his legs quivered so badly he was forced to crawl to the pool, and then he simply rolled into the thin oil. When he surfaced again, the buoyancy of the liquid helped steady him, and the action further stimulated his mind back to the present.

"How long have we been...that is, did we miss our out-time?"

"Only by six billots!" Kin Shoo chimed in, disgust clear in his voice. It was his job to deliver them to the starting line on time and ready to go. He'd been summoned away at the dog-sled station and ordered to report to the Race Oversight Committee for a last-minute briefing, but that had turned out to be a simple ruse. After he'd checked around for almost an entire billot, he found out that no one had called for him...and obviously the fellow, Osage, had not brought them to the proper area.

"SIX BILLOTS!" Ron shouted.

His brain jumped from hazy to sharp with the next quick gulp of air...like a wintering grizzly suddenly awakened by a mortal threat. He swept the area in a flash.

"Where the hell are you, Jazz?" he demanded of the tiny Ordicean.

"Here," she replied, the sound of her voice spouting from a medallion that one of the female attendants wore. There were six women and six men in the room by then. All were native Cilderans.

"You know why I cannot be there in person," she added.

Ron did know, so he turned to the rest of the entourage with a forceful tone. "Get them up!" he ordered, hoisting himself out of the pool in one smooth move.

His exhausted and quivering limbs no longer seemed distressed. He simply wouldn't allow it.

Still panting though, from his recent exertions, he gave more orders between huffs.

"Do we have the necessary accoutrements?"

"Yes. Everything is here," called the original escort.

"Good. Get us rigged up immediately. Bring extra water and some food we can eat as we go. Send someone to tell Ganare` to get the team in position! We'll be there in five borts."

"Five borts? It'll take twenty to rig you properly," the fellow said.

"Five! Go!" Then he turned to Fraidze and Dex who were staggering to their feet. "Get your asses dressed in the next three borts or Draake will meet you on the other side of those doors!"

Ron swept his eyes around to the swarming team of folks sent to help. "MOVE IT!"

Five borts later Ron jogged through the doorway with his team in tow and three helpers still trying to tie the final stages of their gear onto their persons. The daytime sunlight reflecting off the ice and snow of the frozen world was instantly blinding, but Ron's auto-shades brought that back down to a manageable level even before he donned his goggles.

Fraidze and Bart recoiled from the blast but they too kept moving, bringing their own eyewear down into place and locating their sled.

They'd missed all the briefings about the first leg of their journey, so they had no clue about what to expect. Ron was forced to simply place his faith in his native guide.

"Ganare`! Let's get moving and you can explain as we go."

Ganare` merely nodded as he hurried to his duties.

The musher was already approaching with three of his dogs while Ron, Dex, and Fraidze tied their skis onto their boots. They felt the needle-like jabs that the super-cold air was driving into their skin, but did their best to ignore it and finish the task. The skis were long and just wide enough to accommodate the footwear of the men, and they had the typical hinged anchor-plates underneath, the ones cross-country skiers used to be able to move only in one direction.

As soon as the men stood, Ganare` attached a lead to a central loop built into the winter gear they wore. That cord, in turn, was secured to the harness of the animal in front of them. He then stripped his hands of their protection against the twenty below air and signed:

"These creatures will be able to tow you five times as fast as you can go on your own, but on the downhill slopes, you will need to take care and not run over them. Understand?"

Ron relayed the message as his fingers flew.

They all nodded and gripped their poles as Ganare` ran back to the sled.

Ron saw a different team leaving the starting line just ahead of them. They disappeared into the white flurries in the distance and he cursed the situation he was now in. Draake had trusted that he would take control and make sure things went as planned. Now it looked hopeless that they could even make a decent showing. He, Fraidze, and Dex were drained physically, dehydrated badly, and mentally fragmented about how to get themselves back on track.

Ganare` chirped a few sharp whistles and the team immediately broke into a trot. They didn't run because they would have to allow time for the men to become acclimated to the new conveyance first, and too, they'd been idle for too long and needed to warm up.

It took a good billot before everyone was working together smoothly and the animals were running at a decent pace. They were still moving much slower than if Ganare` would have been alone with them...but they were making good progress overall.

"We have to make a water break!" the musher then signed back at Ron. He nodded and passed the news to his men.

Ganare` spotted a good place to stop less than a bort later, so he pulled the team over next to a large snow drift that would break the wind for them, and hurriedly began unhitching the dogs. The beasts looked as if they were out for a Sunday stroll...not appearing winded or tired at all.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Ron felt as if he'd just run a marathon, but he went to help with the animals without hesitation, motioning for his fellows to do likewise. Those four-legged creatures were their life out there, and needed to be well taken care of.

Ganare` positioned himself in a particular orientation to the sun's rays and then placed a crystal the size of a softball on the snow. Within five litas, the snow all the way around the crystal melted into a pool of liquid water large enough for all the animals to drink at once. It was as if a powerful thermal loop had been laid under the frozen flakes in a two-foot circle.

Ron stared at the marvel with open fascination. "How in the world does that work?"

Ganare`'s mittens were off already, so he didn't hesitate to answer. "It is an ancient secret shared by my father's ancestors. This crystal has the ability to concentrate the sun's rays and channel them into the surrounding ice with remarkable results. It is one of the reasons we are always faster than the other teams. We carry no water on our sleds, other than my personal skin," he patted the pouch resting on his hip, "and we don't have to modify our route to find any."

"Very clever," Ron admitted, "but aren't there other methods to do the same thing?"

"Yes, but they are much slower, and in really bad conditions, they can be almost useless."

When the dogs were lapping up their hydration and gulping down a light snack, the men did the same thing, happy to plop down on the ground for a few borts. They hadn't complained once, but Ron could tell his friends were dragging badly. They would simply have to endure.

Ganare` sat cross-legged with them, chomping on a wafer, and then began the breakdown of the first leg of the course. Luckily, since he used his hands to speak, he didn't have to shout to be heard over the whipping sounds of the air blowing at almost gale-force. When Ron translated it to Fraidze however, he did.

"The first leg of the route is fairly straight forward. We have to cross the open plain between Caseel and Himsea, which will take most of the first two days. From Himsea, we have to take a wide arcing loop around a lake before we can turn north toward the Mayorni Glacier."

"Why can't we just ski right across it?" Fraidze asked. "I mean, it's frozen-over...right?"

"Yes...and no," Ganare` answered between bites. "The surface is frozen, but the lake sits above an active thermal plume deep inside the planet. With that heat source, hundreds...maybe thousands...of hot spots exist at the bottom of the lake. And above any of those, the ice is very thin. And since I know you are all from planets that are at least moderately advanced, you undoubtedly know that if you break through the ice, it's over."

The men were indeed familiar with such occurrences, and couldn't suppress a quick shiver at the prospects of such an outcome.

Ganare` then continued with his explanation. "Our third checkpoint is at the edge of that glacier. They haven't announced it, but everyone feels the route will put us crossing that hellacious flow at some point. That will be the worst part of the trip and will probably take the better part of two full days because there is no known trail to follow. It is always changing, filled with crags and voids, and nearly impossible to navigate with a sled team."

The men didn't interrupt Ganare`'s assessment, but instead, just tried to focus and take it in while struggling against their personal fatigue. When he rose to get the dogs back into their positions, they desperately wanted to beg for more time, but of course knew better.

They were all ready to go again in short order, but then their guide took a moment and walked over to them, pulling his mittens off again to tell them something.

"I was told what happened to you all, so I know you men are all extremely tired. That is why I stopped here, in this particular place. The next part of the journey will be very flat, so it is a chance for you to rest...probably your only chance. I suggest you take it."

He saw the confusion on their faces, but was already moving to explain.

"Take these," he signed as he pointed to one of Ron's push-poles. "They separate like so."

A quick twist and yank broke the pole down into two parts.

"Lock this end here," he demonstrated, securing one end of the pole into a special slot on the left ski, "and this end here." Two more moves had the skis secured to one another in a semi-rigid condition that basically made a mini-sled.

"Now, you can kneel on your skis and sleep. It is not ideal, and may end up giving you some rather uncomfortable cramps when you try to stand again, but it is better than nothing. You make the choice."

Ganare` then headed back to the main sled and grabbed hold. He glanced back only once before giving the "Go" signal through his whistling commands, and found them all...even Ron, who hated to miss anything...huddled down on their sleds. They were all out in less than a hundred peors.

Ron came to when he felt the speed drop again, and looked about. The terrain was much different there, and it was apparent that the day was growing short and they were heading into some hilly country. When his tethered beast stopped, he forced his aching body up again, stretching as well as he could. The cold had soaked through him though and it was difficult to move...and manipulating his fingers took some real concentration. He did some quick calisthenics and ran in place for a bit while blowing into his icy mittens before he could finally release the hardworking creature along with the two others that towed his teammates.

"Where are we?" Ron asked Ganare` when he joined the smaller man watering and feeding his animals. "And how long was I out?"

"We are a third the way to Himsea, but if we had started on time, we would be past half...but that was the fast part. It will be much slower from here on. And you have been sleeping for nearly five billots."

It felt more like five borts to Ron. "How could you stay moving that long? How could the dogs pull for such a period without rest?"

Ganare` merely cocked his head and shot Ron a look of curiosity. "We stopped four times," he signed quickly.

That rocked Ron because he couldn't imagine how he'd missed those...but he just shook his head and began thinking about the race again.

"Is there any way to shave off some time...any shortcuts?"

Ganare` raised his eyebrows in quick succession. "But of course! Where do you think we're headed?" his fingers asked with a wink.

Ron smiled back at the fellow and they both went to their work of checking the beasts. He was really beginning to like that little man. Ganare` was quite impressed with Ron too, at how fast he picked up on caring for the dogs...but also, his seemingly unnatural ease with them. It was as if he'd been around them for cycles, not billots.

They were able to travel only one more billot before having to wake the other men when the hills became much steeper. After that, it took everything they had working together, to keep the team moving.

When the day had turned to twilight, Ron asked Ganare` about his plans for the night.

"Well, if we were on schedule, I would recommend we rest. However, in our situation, I recommend we keep on for another two billots...to try and make up some of the time."

"What about the dogs? Is it a risk to them?"

Ganare` appreciated Ron's concern for his animals very much. Most people would think of them last, or not at all.

"No, they will be fine. They have run hard today, but they were fresh and eager, and show no signs of distress.

They checked in at a seldom used waypoint...which was nothing more than an electronic marker...before continuing on well after sunset. There was a huge full moon shining brightly down at them, and the stars appeared incredibly clear, allowing excellent visibility across the white landscape.

Ron had noticed since he'd awakened that they were cutting fresh, unmarked snow, and he'd wondered about that for quite a while. His curiosity finally got the better of him at the next stop.

"Ganare`," he began when they were shoulder to shoulder, freeing the animals. "Why have I seen no evidence of any other team?"

The little man turned his face up at Ron with a broad smile. (Ron couldn't actually see the man's face, but could see it in his eyes.) "No one in their right minds would come this way!" he signed with a light, muffled laugh issuing forth. "There is no water for a hundred hoz!"

He then plopped down his magic crystal and continued to chuckle. It took much longer, almost five borts, but still managed to liquefy the surrounding snow with only the moon's glow and starlight.

They camped that night in a deep depression that was well hidden from the gusting winds, and even had a hot meal of stew before turning in for four billots of uninterrupted sleep.

Ron was up and stretching out his stiff muscles when Ganare` peeked out of his warm little dome of furs, and that surprised him. Typically he was first to arise, especially in the middle of a race. He joined Ron in the exercises and soon they were both warm and ready to go.

They then woke the men to get them moving and went to the dog team. They were all on the trail again before the dawn had fully broken.

They faced more hills and turns and switchbacks that morning, enough to have Fraidze and Dex completely lost, but when they paused for a short break at noon, Ganare`'s swift little fingers asked Ron if he knew where they had come from and where they were headed, Ron amazed the smaller man by answering both with exacting precision.

"I have never met a man who could do that on their first outing," he signed to Ron as they all ate. "Even experience hunters and guides get confused. How is it that you are able to keep your heading in a totally foreign land?"

Ron just shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. "I have no idea. I just can."

The weather turned worse shortly thereafter, when the altitude rose, and Ron was again reminded of the horrendous journey he'd made on Caron...back then surviving only by the slimmest of margins and the greatest luck. It was heavy, blowing snow that dropped the temperature dramatically, and the visibility went down to a mere hundred peors, so the men all turned to their guide.

"Can we continue through this?" Bart yelled.

Ganare` was unflustered, shoving the sled over a small rise. He paused and let the larger men do the work while he signed his reply. "If we are lucky, this will slow the Lords' team down a great deal, so if you can, I think we should carry on."

"Do you think we've made up some of our lost time?" Ron inquired when they were rushing downhill.

Ganare` was back on the sled runners again and Ron was right beside him, both gliding along smoothly.

"It is impossible to know for sure until we reach Himsea," he signed, "but the route we're on is much more direct than what the other racers are using. It is also much tougher to negotiate. But with the way things have gone, I would guess we'll have made up close to half our original deficit."

That was pretty good news, but there was still a long way to go, so no one was cheering just yet.

It was less than a billot later however, when Ron felt the first jolt of uneasiness. He'd seen his tow animal's ears swivel sharply, and its fur shoot up on its spine. A moment later the dog's head snapped left for an instant before returning to the front. It then began sniffing at the air every few litas.

At that point Ron began his own inspection. He watched each of the dogs go through the same set of indicators before he started searching the surrounding land for what he knew was out there. The animals could all smell it, but he hadn't yet, so he felt assured that whatever it was wasn't close. Then, a half billot later as they shot through one particularly narrow, gusty valley, he suddenly got a whiff of what they had, and then he felt his own hair stand on end.

Wolves were on their trail!

### Chapter Forty-four

### Desperate Choices

Ron kept his eyes on the landscape as they continued onward, knowing that what he'd sensed was upwind of them and hoping they were merely there by coincidence...but deep inside he wondered. Could the Kreete have intentionally placed predators at the only location that might be used as a shortcut?

They pulled up for a rest break soon afterward, and when he was assisting Ganare` with the sled dogs, Ron made his inquiries...out of earshot of the other men.

"What type of wild animals travel this land?" he asked quietly.

Ganare` would have thought he was only making idle conversation if he hadn't also noticed the unusual alertness of his team, and how they all kept sniffing at the air and looking about.

The musher looked right into Ron's eyes for a long lita, and in that moment, he knew Ron was more than curious.

"There are only two animals that might cause us worry," he signed. "One is the vartec...a large, four-legged beast that normally hunts grazing animals like the cartelics (translated into Raulden to mean a moose-like creature). Those, however, are in the middle of their hibernation cycles. The other is the pronwal. It's a canine about the size of one of our team animals, but it only hunts small game like birds and rats. Also, pronwals hunt either alone or with a mate...never in packs...so they wouldn't even consider approaching us."

Ganare` cut a glance to Fraidze and Dex who were huddled down, drinking and snacking. He wondered why they were not involved in the conversation for a moment.

"Why do you ask?" he finally queried, but Ron didn't even see his fingers' motions.

Ron was really vibrating by then...standing tall and scouring the land with his eyes. He felt certain that something was very close.

"Do you have any weapons?" he asked as he slipped the only knife he had out of its sheath, his eyes still searching and searching.

By then, Fraidze and Dex had caught on to Ron's attitude and were watching him closely, their own eyes now dancing to the side and then back at him.

Ganare` was suddenly trembling with fear about what might be causing his dogs and those huge heavy-worlder men so much angst, and that fright caused his mind to forget his charade.

"Well, I don't normally carry anything other than a skinning blade and an ice axe," he answered vocally, turning to look at the sled with a strange expression, "but now that you mention it, a pretty little foreign woman urged me to bring something with us." He then knelt to reach under the rear of the sled. "She said to give you this if..."

Ron heard none of it though, the wind ripping the sound of the small man's voice apart before it could reach him. But his words wouldn't have registered anyway because Ron's inner self was no longer listening.

The sled dogs suddenly all leaped to their feet with their teeth bared and Ron dropped to one knee, a snarl on his own lips and his blade gripped tightly.

"RRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR!" ripped through the howling wind and reverberated across their little camp as ten white blurs all converged on them at once.

Ron was bowled over instantly as one slammed into him broadside, but if he hadn't ducked, its jaws would have been clamped to his neck. As it was, Ron sunk his knife into the shoulder of aggressor and then rolled with the beast, managing to kick it free of him far enough to get his feet beneath him again to face it.

When the attacking creature righted itself and turned on him, Ron got the full view of precisely what now threatened them.

They were Bastovian Jackals. Standing three feet high at the shoulder, the jackal was totally white and blended into the snowy surroundings with incredible accuracy. The only things that stood out were its eyes which were as black as two ovals of coal...excellent for blocking the blinding effects of sunlight on ice. The animal was broad across the front shoulders and had thick fur that fluttered in the wind. Its legs were long and stout with feet the size of dinner plates for excellent support in even soft, powdered snow. It was built to survive the brutal, frozen tundra of its homeworld, and it was exceptionally intelligent. They normally traveled in packs of ten or twelve, hunted with superior, cunning technics, and were incredibly lethal.

Ron knew in an instant that he and his group were terribly outmatched. In his peripheral vision, he saw that Ganare` had dived under the sled in time to keep from being the first victim, but one of the jackals was rocking the sled back and forth violently, trying to get at him. Fraidze and Dex had the sense to get back to back to fend off a trio that was after them, and were using their packs like shields to keep the jackals dagger-like teeth away from their flesh. The luckiest thing for them however, was the fact that the sled dogs had been freed of their tethers and were quick enough to both escape and distract the main group of adversaries. Unfortunately, Ron knew that wouldn't last long.

Ron growled at his wild opponent, feeling the well of adrenaline spike in his system, and brandished his puny blade. It wasn't much (his first strike hadn't slowed the wild dog at all), but it was all he had and so he would make the best use of it he could. But then a new sound caught his ear. It was a second snarling, trembling growl.

Another jackal was at his back!

He wanted to cast his heavy thermal layers aside so he might have more freedom of movement, but that would have been folly in the thirty-below air and whipping wind, so he did all he could to prepare, spreading his feet wide to give him maximum mobility and stability.

The frigid air then suddenly erupted with the call to battle of the Aredanz Mountain folk, drawing every head to pivot around and witness the unleashed fury of his ferocious mountain clan.

It was at that very moment, when the jackals all paused to decipher Ron's challenge, that Ganare` remembered his previous duty. He'd been approached near the kennels' food stores as he'd packed his sled, away from all the other mushers and the Cilderan attendants. And with all the seriousness that such a beautiful woman could possibly muster, Cache Kuar had said to him; "If danger arises...whatever else happens...get this into Itsu's hands! It may be your only hope!" She'd left immediately afterward, drifting into the shadows of the underground facility like a puff of smoke.

It was a heavy object, and he'd badly wanted to protest her insistence that he bring it, but something in her eyes had added too much weight to her request. Now he merely obeyed, and hoped she was right. Her words were like a ringing bell in Ganare`'s frantic ears as he cut the object free from where he'd stowed it.

"ITSU!" he shouted as he hurled the three-foot-long staff underhanded like a chunk of firewood.

The fires of battle were at their peak when Ron's eyes caught a glimpse of that rod flying through the air. It was straight as an arrow and as black as space itself. And even as the jackals both leaped for him, he ignored them and instead, whirled in a blinding, spinning motion.

Before those two fiends of bestial destruction could close the narrow gap, Ron's gloves were cast aside, as was his knife, and his fingers were gripping the cross-hatched surface of a fantastic, familiar, dependable old friend.

The instant his hand clasped the hilt of that ebony rod, the sheath released from the blade and a tool of death that had no equal leaped into the fray. Ron's spin did not slow either, as the sword he'd defended two worlds with accelerated to mind-numbing speed, passing completely through the neck of the first airborne jackal and continuing around to split the skull of the second.

In a tenth of a lita, the pristinely white surface of the camp was showered in crimson, and Ron Allison went down again. This time however, his whirling, rolling figure sprang up ninety degrees to the right, into a four peor leap through the frigid gale. When his booted feet landed beside Dex, the tip of his ebony rapier disappeared inside one of his attackers...its spinal column cleaved in two.

"WHERE DID HE GET THAT SWORD?" Maice Lorr screamed at his assistants, leaping to his feet in absolute fury.

Arsisi didn't hear him. She couldn't move...couldn't even breathe...her eyes were locked on that battle of men and beasts.

Cache too, was a statue of frantic desperation. She was absolutely confident that Ron could vanquish any foe if properly armed, but actually watching him in mid-action was an entirely different thing. Her grip on the viewer she watched was so tight that it actually warped the edges of the image.

From there, Ron was a wrecking crew of growling savagery, dispatching the two other jackals menacing his friends with devastating ease before he turned back toward the sled. When he did, he couldn't resist a loud growl at what he saw.

"Oh, sart!" Fraidze yelled out at the catastrophic scene.

Covered in a grisly sheen of red gore, Ron bolted forward without replying, his vision already in full-on battle mode.

Dex and Fraidze were right behind him and together they rushed the six beasts that were tangling with the dogs and Ganare`.

Ron scooped up his previously discarded knife in a dead run and flipped it into the side of a jackal that three dogs were fighting, and then he dove completely over the sled to reach Ganare`'s side.

One of the creatures had the little fellow by the leg and was hauling him out of his hiding spot, with another rushing at him from the opposite direction. Ron speared the first one with the dark sword and crashed into it with all his momentum, shoving its body into the path of the other's and fouling that creatures attack.

Its gaping maw and awful fangs fell barely half an inch short of Ganare`'s unprotected throat.

Dex raced into the melee` in the next instant and tackled that second encroaching jackal like a freight train, carrying it out of the fight with his superior mass. Both he and the wild dog then tumbled and rolled across the small camp in a blur of flying snow and arterial spray.

Fraidze didn't hesitate either, also utilizing his heavy-worlder physique to attack another of the huge wild beasts that were bent on killing the sled dogs. He gripped the writhing creature around its thick neck with both arms and locked his legs around its stomach, holding on for the ride of his life. The thick sinews of his biceps strained hard against the leathery covering of his coat (to the point that the bulge was actually visible) as he concentrated all his strength into crushing the huge canine. After a few long litas of wild panic, the jackal's thrashing dropped by half, so Fraidze immediately went to work, burying his knife into it again and again until no more fight remained.

When it finally lay still on the ground, he fell away from it in an exhausted heap, flat out on the snow. Luckily there was no more threat because he was certain he'd used up every ounce of energy he had in him.

In less than a bort, the pack of jackals was destroyed and the fight was over. The only surviving two of their pack bolted from the battle with all haste before the Aredanz champion cut loose with his victory cry, filling the air with his bone-rattling roar.

Ron then stood upright in the center of the gore-strewn camp like a blood-soaked statue at the gates of hell, his eyes scanning the frozen ground for more adversaries with which to do combat.

The land however, had returned to its icy serenity.

As the heat receded from his blood, and his pounding heart slowed, Ron once more took stock of what was around him. He rushed to Ganare`'s side yet again, nearly panicked that the musher might have been grievously injured.

"Are you hurt?" Ron blurted, grabbing the fellow's foot and searching it for blood.

Luck was with them though, because he'd been spared by the thick, nearly impenetrable hide his boots were made from.

"No," Ganare` replied, his eyes transfixed with the awesome warrior he'd just witnessed in deadly warfare. "I-I-I-I'm a little b-b-banged up, but not bad. Th-thank you, Lord Itsu!"

Ron just waved him off. "It's you we all should be thanking, Ganare`. If you hadn't gotten my sword to me, I think we'd all have been dog food."

Fraidze vigorously joined in with that sentiment.

"How'd you even know what it was?" Fraidze asked Ron as they hauled Ganare` to his feet.

Ron glanced at the weapon he still held, suddenly curious about it too because the grip was warm to his touch. Then he remembered the power source in its handle and smiled. Cache really had thought of everything.

"This blade and me go back quite a ways," Ron told them. "I'd know it anywhere. And I'll have to remember to thank a certain person when we get back. She really saved our asses!"

"Hey," Fraidze said suddenly, turning to their slight musher. "I thought you couldn't speak?"

Ganare` smiled timidly up at the huge man beside him, not knowing exactly what to say. Ron just grinned slyly back down at him.

"I thought you might find your tongue eventually," he said lightly, "but we should...hold up!" Ron added abruptly, pausing to sweep the camp again. "Where's De...?"

He spotted the big man an instant later, lying on his side about twenty peors away and half covered with freshly fallen snow. Ron could see his back heaving up and down quickly, and he smiled.

"He must have really gotten a workout!" he guessed, his own chest still swelling mightily from the strain of the battle. He walked quickly over to the man before stooping to help him up...but that's when his stomach knotted up as tight as he'd ever felt it.

The once brilliant white, frozen ground around Dex was now dark...and red!

Ron fell to his knees in a flash, frantic at what he knew it meant, and rolled Dex over to his back. Fraidze was there too, standing at Ron's shoulder, and he gasped in horror. A moment later he was ten feet away on his own knees, vomiting. Dex's hands were covering his throat which was gushing blood from a wound that began at his dangling lower jaw and ended at his chest. He had managed to slay the jackal, but it had cost him everything in return. His eyes showed his understanding too. They weren't panicked or weeping. They were just sad.

If it hadn't been for Ron's experience in battle...having seen worse (having inflicted much worse)...he too would have been heaving his latest meal out on the ground. As it was though, his stomach was still a twisted ball of knots and he felt a deep and powerful emotional loss he wouldn't have imagined possible for a man he really hardly knew.

It wasn't that he'd never lost good, valiant men in the numerous battles he'd fought in, because he had...in large numbers. Too many of them had been fathers of young children who desperately needed them, or husbands who had a lifetime of plans ahead of them with the woman of their dreams.

He even recalled that one man, Vance Hern, and all six of his grown sons had perished before the walls of Huinrag in the fight for Caron's freedom...but he had weathered all of that better than this.

No, the stabbing pain he felt wasn't because he hadn't seen and felt loss before. It was because this fine young man lying in the snow beside him had lost his life for a game...a stupid, brutal, useless game!

"I am truly sorry, my friend," Ron told him, kneeling at his shoulder and locking his stare with Dex's. "You have done extremely well, for our team and for your countrymen. Go to your ancestors in peace and know that we will forever be in your debt."

Dex could obviously not reply, but Ron could see the pride in his eyes and the blazing fire of life the man had always displayed. After a few more litas passed however, those eyes faded and glazed, never to shine again.

Ron pressed his lids closed against the freezing wind, and then said a prayer for the man's spirit. It was a simple phrase that bubbled to the surface of his thoughts, undoubtedly a flash from Kaskle's distant past.

"Great Father above, open your arms and welcome another of our brothers. Take this brave soul to your campfire, O Great One. He has given all, and made us proud."

Ganare` stood off to the side, watching the short scene somberly, but then began to take stock of 'his' team, the crew of beasts that now lay scattered about.

"Oh no!" he sighed out loud.

Three of the dogs were dead. Two more limped badly and all had some amount of blood showing on them.

Ron steeled himself, setting aside his emotional despair, and instantly went back to work. The event was still a long way from over.

It took another twenty borts for the men to inspect each of the animals and catalogue how much damage had been done, but when the assessment was complete, they had at least a small amount of hope.

"We can still pull the sled," Ganare` said, "but I think we should lighten the load as much as we can. I'll have to pair up the team differently, and watch them more closely, but we should still be able to finish. And if the injured pair aren't too badly damaged, they'll probably be okay in a day or two, so that'll help."

"What should we do about the dead?" Fraidze asked sourly.

Having spent the past cycle and a half shoulder to shoulder with Dex on Parkanick, he was reeling from his friend's death.

Ron was silent for a long few moments. He could tell it was a very difficult time for Ganare` as well.

"Let's put the dogs with Dex, so the recovery team can take them all," Ganare` finally said.

Ron picked them up one by one and laid them out next to Dex's body respectfully, silently thanking each of them for their service and their sacrifice. Then he ground his teeth together, cursing the Kreete. The Games of the Triad had claimed four more valiant lives, and it gnawed at him badly.

When the harnesses were shortened and adjusted, and the men were tethered once more, they set off into the storm again. Ron had used a length of rawhide to attach the shadow-blade to his outer coat, just in case, but he didn't expect any more trouble. However, they'd lost nearly another whole billot and didn't have any idea how they could possibly recover it.

Onward they went nonetheless, because giving up was simply not an option.

Four billots later they pulled into Himsea. They were exhausted, frozen, and depressed as they skied across the timekeeper's position and entered the official way station. This was the second of the seven checkpoints that had to be met in order to continue, and each team's incoming time-split from the leader would be exactly replicated on their release the following morning.

When the dogs were all taken care of in a secure, semi-heated kennel (The dogs had to be sheltered in a near freezing environment to keep them from overheating), the humans all made their way over toward their own assigned accommodations. That bit of reprieve was merely a set of temporary tents anchored out on a flat patch of snow in a half-moon configuration, but each was heated and had sleeping mats...luxury to the trail-weary men.

At the front of that fan-shaped arrangement, backed up against the southern face of a two-hundred-foot cliff, was the only permanent structure within seventy hoz. It was an inn with a restaurant and bar, and had space for about fifty people total. It was the sole basecamp for all excursions deeper into the frozen wilderness, which were few and seldom, but no guests were currently allowed...only workers to provide for the contestants' needs. The Lords didn't want any unknown interference with the event.

Ron led Ganare` and Fraidze into the restaurant/bar for what would be their first cooked meal of the week. They were bone-tired, dispirited, and half starving, but when they looked up at the large scoreboard hanging over the wide counter, they stopped dead in their tracks.

They were in third position...only four billots behind the Kreete team!

They nearly cheered!

However, after what they'd already endured, and with four more days to go, they managed to keep their perspective and carry on without fanfare, moving off to get a huge hot meal and then immediately on to their assigned hut. They saw no one from any other team, and barely spoke to the servers who took care of them, their thoughts still clouded from the day's tragedy.

Wishing for a long, hot shower, but knowing that was merely a dream, the men trudged stiffly out to their tent in silence, still sullen and morose. Nevertheless, when they found they could strip off the outer three layers of their thermal barriers and still be comfortable in the tent, they perked up. And when they finally lay prone on the semi-warm, padded mattresses they felt convinced that those three beds were the finest they'd ever slept in.

Unfortunately, it felt like one of the shortest nights as well.

The next day's start was moderated once again by position and time spread of how they'd arrived.

The Outcasts didn't get lost that day though, and bolted out of town exactly on schedule. They were still missing three pulling dogs, but the ones that had limped were much better and the men had gotten almost five solid billots of sleep, so, all in all, things were looking up.

They trudged along at a strong pace all morning, eventually even getting to a point where they could see the second place squad. But that wasn't good enough, so as midday approached, Ron pulled up even with Ganare` and posed a question.

"Is there truly no way to cut across the northern turn?"

Ganare` glared at him as if he were mad. "Surely you remember that we negotiate a lake with this route. That's why we don't simply cut straight to the checkpoint. Only a thin upper crust is solid...not nearly thick enough to support a loaded sled."

Ron let that go for a while and dropped back, but he was desperate to make up some time, so his mind kept churning for a solution. After a while longer he sidled up to Ganare` again.

"What if the sled wasn't loaded?" he asked.

Ganare` stared at him once again, but Ron could see his eyes and knew he was already thinking. A few moments later he replied.

"It 'might' be possible if the sled was light enough, but if it goes in, we're through! The sled must cross the finish. And also, the dogs will likely go in with it...and that is something I cannot chance."

"Okay. Here's what I'm thinking. If we take some of the load off the sled and tow it ourselves...thirty or so peors to the side...then put a longer rope on the team's harness so the sled is far behind, then maybe it'll be okay."

"But the extra weight on the men would be equally as dangerous," the slighter man replied.

Ron hadn't quite figured out that part of the equation, so he dropped back again.

Ganare` kept going for another quarter-billot before he pulled up quickly, stopping the team and looking back at Ron as if he'd just thought of something.

"I might have an idea that could help."

The musher then unlaced the edge of the cover that draped over their supplies and pulled out an odd-looking set of a dozen leather-like panels. He worked quickly...obviously from experience and repetition...and arranged the segments into a specific pattern. Barely a bort later, he had them tied together into what looked like a deep, round shield about four feet in diameter.

He secured a long strap to the shield device and dropped it to the ground where it slid neatly behind the sled.

"It's a sea-turtle's shell," he told Ron. "I carry it for an emergency shelter."

"And you want to put some of the supplies in there!"

"Exactly."

With that, Ganare` smiled up at Ron. Ron could tell he enjoyed a good challenge, and the thought of crossing the treacherous route made him almost giddy...be it from excitement, or fear, Ron didn't know.

They turned east immediately and struck out downwind for the first time of the day. Another two billots brought them to the edge of nothing as far as Ron could make out, but Ganare` pulled the team to a stop with exacting precision.

"The shoreline is there," he explained, pointing to a place no more than ten feet ahead of the lead dog.

He walked out to the animal and stroked it roughly.

"Do you think this is a good idea?" Ron asked when he caught up with Ganare`.

The smaller man looked up at him and laughed, then walked away shaking his head. He immediately began unloading the sled. The sled was not overly encumbered already and was even designed with a shallow trough to accommodate one person to rest comfortably on it, so as to allow the musher the chance to get off his feet during the longer stages. It didn't take them long before they were ready to give it a try.

Ron looked at Fraidze who generally hated every gamble they took...but the huge fellow was actually excited for a chance to screw up the Kreete's plan, and didn't even try to talk him out of it.

With a couple of ropes, the tarp, and a single wooden pole, Ron and Ganare rigged up a crude sail that would catch the wind enough to help relieve the dogs of some of their burden, and thus get them off the lake as fast as possible. Then they ran a rope from Ganare` on the left of the sled, to the reins of the last dog, and then over to Ron and on to Fraidze.

Ganare` warned Ron to be on the lookout for any darker patches in the ice, which were the thinnest areas. Then they started out across the ultra-flat lake.

They moved tentatively at first, and even the dogs seemed to be nervous, but once they got into a good pace, everyone settled down.

"Keep your skis as close to the ice as possible, Ron told Fraidze...passing along Ganare`s advice. You don't want your weight to strike the surface with too much force."

It was thirty hoz to the other side, but a hundred to go around, so the gamble seemed to make sense, and before long they were making excellent speed.

It was incredible, how much the wind helped them too, because as strong as it was, they were almost gliding across the frozen expanse like a group of tourists.

Another billot went by and they were all relaxed in their rhythms, just watching ahead and trying not to think about the distance they still had to cross, when they first heard a heart-wrenching sound.

"CRAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKK!" went the ice beneath them.

### Chapter Forty-five

### Perseverance and Luck

Ron saw it first...a large section settling lower into the level surface just fifteen peors ahead of them. Unfortunately, they were moving fast so there was not enough room to stop and go around before they would reach it.

Ganare` glanced over at him and saw him pointing. He'd seen it to, and in response to that danger, Ganare` threw up his fist and then his fingers burst out into an open hand. A heartbeat later three chirps rang out and the dogs bolted forward with all they had.

"Spread out!" Ron shouted to Fraidze and they both dropped the rope and dashed further away from the sled.

Ganare` did his best to keep up with the dogs, but they outpaced him quickly and he had to make a decision...cut the sled loose to save his team, or hope they could outrun the collapsing ice.

At the last possible instant Ganare` decided to chance it, turned loose the rope still intact, and prayed.

The dogs hit the sinking ice-float at a dead run and were across it so fast only the last beast felt the sting of water on its paws. Next came the sled which displaced just enough area to allow the ice to make a quick bobbing motion before the loaded shell got there.

By that time, the chunk of ice had fractured again and Ron held his breath as the huge turtle shell skipped across the water and slammed into the edge of the firmer ice of the other side. There was a loud "Pop" and the shell catapulted up a foot into the air before landing and skidding forward once again at a fast rate.

As one, they all let out a huge sigh of relief and gave thanks to whoever was still looking out for them. They'd all made it...even the supplies.

The team rushed along another thirty litas before Ganare` whistled again and slowed them to a trot. That gave the two-legged members of the team a chance to collect themselves and catch up.

Ron and Fraidze made a wide detour around the broken section and then worked their way back to the sled as quickly as they could. There they each took up the rope again and continued on...only now with their hearts racing and their eyes straining even harder to see any more soft spots.

They ran into groaning and "wet" ice four more anxiety-riddled times before they were done, but none of it claimed a victim, and for that, they were immensely grateful.

It was late in the day when Ganare` finally signaled that he could see the shoreline, but it wasn't until they had crossed it a good hundred peors before any of them slowed.

Once they found themselves safely over solid ground again though, they were all more than ready to stop for a much needed respite.

After attending the dogs' needs again, they sat down and enjoyed a long, relaxing, well-earned meal. It was the first time they'd been off their feet since they'd started that day, and they felt it through and through.

"Itsu, that has to be the dumbest, most reckless thing I've ever tried," Ganare` said with a laugh. "You're a genius!"

Ron merely shook his head and grinned. "No, I'm just that desperate."

"Well, we shouldn't be more than three billots from the checkpoint, if I'm right about where we are," Ganare` added. "And with the ground we saved, we should be in fine shape."

That was enough to make Ron and Fraidze smile and get to their feet once more, even through the stiffness and pain they were feeling.

On they went yet again, into the snowy, blasting landscape.

At the tiny way station on the edge of the Mayorni Glacier, the Kreete had constructed temporary quarters for the racers and their teams, just like at Himsea...a tent for each group. But that wasn't the only thing totally new to Ganare`, who'd traveled that route a hundred times.

Normally that outpost was nothing more than a single, small building used to store supplies for any excursion group who might be traveling through. Now however, there stood a huge building that was both heated and lighted, and he could even detect the smell of cooking.

"Wow!" he said as he stared at the marvel. "That wasn't here even two santaris ago!"

"Well, I'm sure glad it's here now!" Fraidze replied.

His sentiments didn't last long though, because inside that building, the Destroyers, sat around a long table and toasted one another in the wonderful achievement they'd made.

"Let us drink to our victory!" Grayle shouted to his two men in a boisterous, booming voice. The three of them were sitting casually back against the wall, feeling the effects of those first few day's exertions, but they raised their mugs high, deliriously happy about their position. They were certain they'd put a huge margin between them and the second place team.

"I wonder how the Outcasts enjoyed their little surprise?" he added, belting out another hearty round of laughter.

The residents who manned the facility kept their distance and tried to be invisible, but they were following the Games closely and had postulated on some nefarious act having been the cause of the Outcasts' initial delay. Now they were assured of it.

The Kreete team had been in the station for only half a billot and didn't expect any company for at least three billots, possibly four. So when Ron, Fraidze, and Ganare` strolled through the door and began stripping the frozen layers of their clothes off, they all sat like statues, staring at the humans as if they were on fire.

Ron felt like he'd been dragged across the ice and beaten the whole way. Every inch of his body screamed in distress, his joints felt like they'd been frozen for a santari, and he was sure he would collapse at any moment. Yet he and Fraidze had agreed on a plan of strategy if the opportunity arose, and he wasn't about to miss his chance.

As nonchalantly as he could, Ron shook off his heavy coat and laughed as if he'd just spent the morning skiing in Vail.

Three cheerful fellows hurriedly rushed out to help them get situated at a large table near one of the four fireplaces.

"All right, guys," Ron said good-naturedly, "stuff your sorry faces and then off to bed! Tomorrow might not be the picnic we had today."

Ron glanced over at the Kreete's table and gave them a wink. "Nice weather, eh?"

The Destroyers merely glared back, speechless.

The men enjoyed the huge, hot meal immensely...laughing and talking the whole time...and then headed out to their sleeping quarters while the Kreete team just stared. Their mealtime had taken an entire billot, but the Lords team still had not made a single sound.

Day four:

Ron awakened to a firm slap in the face.

"RONIN!" screamed Fraidze.

Even with that, Ron looked up at him groggily. "What?"

"Forgive me, my friend, but I could not wake you, and it is nearly time to go to the briefing.

Ron began to comprehend his surroundings at that point and rolled over to the edge of the bed. He let out a long, grunting groan of discomfort. It felt like his muscles had all atrophied while he'd slept, and the mere thought of the day's trials forced his skull to throb.

Suddenly something delicious was shoved under his nose though and he brightened. Food!

"Here, eat something. You'll need the calories."

"Thanks," he told Ganare`, who was holding a platter heaping with delectable treats.

Ron started shoveling food and drink down his throat as quickly as he could while trying to stretch his stiff joints and muscles.

Fifteen borts later, the Outcasts stood in the same hall they'd seen the Kreete in the night before, but the Lords' team members didn't look as jolly as they had on the preceding evening.

"This next challenge will be for the remaining fifteen teams," Eamone explained via holographic projection. "The others did not make the checkpoints.

"As many of you have no doubt guessed, it is to cross the Mayorni Glacier and rendezvous at the way station on the far side, in Isradty."

He stood beside a large map that showed the glacier and its surrounding mountains. It looked completely nonthreatening on a nice flat map.

"The glacier is only fifty hoz across, but your guides will all agree that it will be a serious challenge to your strength, your agility, your resourcefulness, and your courage.

"Any route may be taken and no penalties will be given for discouraging others to follow your path."

Ron perked up at that. "So sabotaging the trail is okay, huh?" he whispered. "That sounds about right."

He glanced down at Ganare` and the smaller man smiled. "That's the way it's played," he said.

"You will all start in the same position as you arrived here...with equal time spreads to the order you came in. You should be able to make it in two and a half days. Your time is up in three. Good luck!"

The Kreete set out ten borts later and the Outcasts prepared to follow.

"Do you know the route across the glacier?" Fraidze asked Ganare`.

"Of course, but the one thing about it is that the ice is always moving, and this particular flow is very fast. Too, the last anyone was allowed out on it was a santari ago. Everything we knew then is changed now."

"Great!" Fraidze grumbled.

"Do not worry," Ganare` added quickly. "There are a number of ways to read the ice and overcome it."

Ron slapped Fraidze on the back and smiled a grand smile.

"What are you so happy about?" he asked.

"Look at it this way," Ron chuckled, "what's the worst that can happen?"

Ganare` and Fraidze both stared at him like he was insane.

Thirty-two borts later the Outcasts set out again.

The day was vastly different than the last one. The sun shined so brilliantly that the surface of the world seemed to literally glow white. Each of the teams wore some extremely dark goggles in order to moderate the glare so they wouldn't go blind. Even Ron took a pair to relieve his eyes from any undue strain.

They headed east across the last flat part of the course and soon the monstrous wall of ice that comprised the glacier loomed up at them like an actual corporeal enemy.

The wind wasn't nearly as strong out there and Ron could make out the trail of the Kreete team clearly.

"Can we catch them?" he asked Ganare`.

"That will be easy when they hit the glacier, because they have to slow down so drastically, but passing them is another matter.

"Budary...their guide...is taking them straight in...going for the obvious route and hoping it is still manageable, but if we stick to their path, they will certainly beat us."

"Because they'll foul the trail?"

Ganare` nodded.

"Do you have a plan?"

"I'm thinking about it."

Ron then dropped into his shuffling, dogged pace once more, forcing his larger partner to match him. It was a fast clip, but Fraidze matched it and never complained since he was so well aware of what was at stake.

The team entered a large, tubular opening in the ice...one that had been painstakingly cut from the flow to allow a sled to climb to the ridge of the frozen river. It was wide enough to allow three sleds to travel it side-by-side and was much too big for the Kreete to barricade, so up they headed.

It was a steep, winding, twisting climb forcing the dogs to slow down to a mere trot to manage, and even had places where the men needed to help them out with hauling the sled.

That continued until midday, when the Outcasts saw the crest and stopped for a meal. They all tended the animals and then plopped down for a much-needed rest and some food.

Barely a quarter hoz away, they caught a glimpse of the Kreete team rounding a high section of the flow before diving back into the frozen landscape. They appeared close, but it was a very serpentine route and so actually catching them would have taken some doing. Too, they were incredibly strong.

"From here, what do you think?" Fraidze asked Ganare`.

"If I were Budary, I would set a course northeast for the Dagger Trenches. It is the quickest way to reach the center of the flow, and it gets very narrow in several spots. They could probably bring down a section of the walls that would severely delay any followers, maybe even send them back several billots to get around.

"We can follow them if you wish, and hope for the best, but after yesterday's decision to cast caution aside, I suggest a more...daring...option."

Ron and Fraidze both smiled at Ganare` while they chewed their rations and drank deeply to wash it down.

"If we strike out northeast, we can cross the Dragon's Spine...if we're lucky...and come out ahead of them."

"That sounds intriguing!" Fraidze grinned. Apparently he was getting more adventurous as the competition went on.

"All right, then...that's the plan!" Ron agreed.

For the rest of the day, they cut away from the leaders and spent their time weaving in and out of tight crevices, down narrow chutes, and over steep but manageable peaks of ice. Much of the work was done by the men because the sled had to be physically carried over innumerous obstacles, so the dogs were at least able to get some rest through that section.

At mid-afternoon, they crested the ice-flow and met the day's required checkpoint that ran through the very heart of the glacier...and then they set out ninety degrees to the way the Destroyers were headed.

By the time the sun fell below the horizon, the Outcasts were staring up at sixty-peor tall spikes of jagged ice...the Dragon's Spine.

The animals hadn't been extremely overworked, so Ganare` allowed for only a four billot period of sleep. Time management was everything...for good or for bad...and so they were up and climbing before sunup with the sled dangling precariously at the end of their ropes.

All day they struggled over those sharp peaks of frozen water, cursing most of the time at the arduous strain of the event, and fearful that one miscalculation would send their only vehicle crashing into the deep crags.

The dogs did quite well in the steep places too, their breed seemingly part mountain goat, so at least that slice of the equation was without problem. Finally, toward dusk of the second day, the Outcast team was past that harrowing section, past the fifth checkpoint (the far side of the upper flow) and back to their normal mode, with Ganare` riding on the skids of the sled and the dogs trotting along.

That night when they stopped again for their break, Ron inquired about the race.

"Do you think it worked?" he asked Ganare`.

"We should see quickly in the morning. Get some rest. Five billots. No more."

As the sun arose the following day, they could see the lower edge of the glacier. It was no farther than ten hoz away.

They made good time down the exit chute and triggered the sixth checkpoint (there were numerous exit locations allowed along the length of the glacier), before turning northeast again toward the seventh...the finish-line. But when they reached the spot where they would cross the Kreete trail, Ron's heart sunk.

Tracks!

"How the hell?" he exclaimed, his eyes snapping over to Ganare`.

He could tell the small man was greatly surprised. He had clearly expected to come out far ahead of the first place team. Ganare` took a few borts and did some careful computations in his mind.

"They are very fast!" Ganare` admitted grudgingly. "Too fast, really."

"What do you mean?" Ron inquired, his hope not yet completely dashed.

"The best I can guess, barring a swap of animals somewhere on the flow, is that they have allowed far too little rest for their team. Budary is a fierce competitor, but he would never mistreat his animals like that. In their desperate need to win with a large margin, the Lords must have overruled him."

"What can we do?"

Ganare` stayed quiet for another short while.

"It is still twenty hoz to the finish. Their equipment was considerably heavier than ours, just because the Lords are so big and require more food and water. My guess is that their beasts will no longer be able to hold much of a pace, even if the Lords can. We might be able to outlast them...if you think you can."

Ron nodded and passed along the information. They then set a new, more grueling tempo.

A billot later, as they rounded a section of the route that skirted the glacier, they all saw a dark line of clouds. Ahead of them was a storm front that appeared to be moving right toward them.

"That might save us!" Ganare` yelled quickly.

Ron just kept plodding, smooth and rhythmic.

"Do you feel it?" Ganare` asked. "The pressure drop, I mean?"

Ron nodded.

"If the storm dumps enough new snow, it will be soft and thick. It will slow the heavier Kreete down."

Just as Ganare` had predicted, the storm did indeed drop new snow. The temperature had risen enough to make it wet and sticky too. Ron smiled.

The Outcasts kept to their pace.

Before the next billot had passed, they saw the Kreete team.

Ron and Fraidze alike found at least a margin of satisfaction in that fact, and with it a boost of determination.

Budary was riding the sled runners and trying to keep the snow from piling too thick on the sled. The Kreete's massive bodies looked very short from a distance, which seemed extremely odd until it occurred to them that they were almost knee deep in powder, even with their huge skis.

Ron and his team were barely ankle deep. He smiled again.

With ten hoz to go, the Outcasts caught the Destroyers and gained ground on them with every bort after that.

They finished twenty borts ahead of the mighty Triad's elite squad.

### Chapter Forty-six

### The Obstacle Course

Even though the Outcasts had won the race, they'd lost one of their team members, and thus ninety-six points. However, they were awarded almost as many additional ones due to their braving the most difficult and dangerous routes. That tally kept them right up to within a hair's breadth of the Destroyers in the overall standings.

It was a tremendous accomplishment that was heralded across the Empire...although not aboard the _Confarii_. All Maice Lorr could see was the end of his life rapidly approaching. His superiors however, did have to accept that the Outcasts had done what all had thought impossible, and so Maice was not threatened, or even verbally disciplined.

At that point, the Games Committee simply looked to the next event, and hoped their plans would work out better.

One week later;

On an entirely new planet, in a grand, sunken, outdoor arena, the teams that were still trudging forward in the grueling competition were paraded out onto its inner grass-covered field in front of a quarter million adoring fans.

When the fireworks had all dissipated and the audience was finally seated and somewhat quiet, a group of seven humanoids strolled out to a small raised dais that had been erected to stand directly in front of the teams.

One of the group then moved forward to the lone plinth atop the platform and addressed those in attendance.

"Welcome to Qaktoo!" he said firmly, yet with a tiny tremor showing his excitement.

He then waited for the applause to die out once more.

"With great humility, we give thanks to the Lords for the opportunity to host the sixth stage of the ninety-second edition of the Games of the Triad!"

Ron, Draake, and Fraidze merely stood there staring as if bored, but what they truly felt was anger. What they didn't know...couldn't know...was that ninety percent of the others on the field, and even a vast majority in the stands, felt likewise.

"The challenge we have developed is called Routare Adventest, in our language, and when translated into the common dialect means Treacherous Path. It is a pure test of courage, agility, balance, and intellect.

"Since this is the sixth event, only two members of each team need compete, but it is suggested that all do so to allow your team the best chance at a high score. That decision is up to the individual squads however.

"Each group will be required to navigate three separate overland courses to eventually find a winner, and the first two finishing times of each team...on each course...will be cumulative with their others'.

"There are no threats on the courses, other than the course itself, so no weapons will be provided or required, and each path is clearly marked so no one should become lost, even without a guide. Also, the longest version of the routes can be performed in less than half a day, so every participant will be furnished with a pack containing a day's water ration and half a day's worth of food.

"Are there any questions?"

Many hands shot up.

"How will the schedule of teams be chosen?" asked one of the Obarlians.

"We will send you all out in the order of your team's standing. First place will be on course number one, second on two, third on three, and then back to one again after they have cleared the route.

"Any team that fails to have at least one member complete their stage is disqualified and therefore removed from the schedule."

"What about safety provisions?" asked another man...a fellow from the Istalites' team.

"Your packs have emergency beacons imbedded in them. They are the standard type that need only be twisted to set off. A rescue team will be dispatched immediately. Other than that, the observed dangers are completely real."

The remainder of the hands went down at that point.

"Any other questions?"

None were given.

"Very well then, I wish you all the best of luck! If the top three teams would please report to the starters' shuttles at the back of the stadium, we will get this competition underway!"

Draake led his trio to the appropriate shuttle, luckily far away from the Kreete's six man squad, and they boarded the designated aircraft. In merely moments, they were whisked away at high speed toward their next clash with mortality. The windows of the craft turned opaque as soon as they lifted off, so the men just leaned back and enjoyed the ride.

Upon landing, the Outcasts were given their packs and half a billot to ready themselves.

Like every other team, they performed numerous calisthenics to familiarize themselves with the planet's pull, the level of oxygen in the air, and the heat and humidity. It was a heavy-gravity world (a ten-point-two) but was comfortable in most aspects. The environment would not be the dangerous part of the challenge.

Time steadily slipped by and in seemingly just a blink, their half billot was gone.

A beaming young female guide stepped forward from her station that oversaw the starting area and beckoned them follow her. She led them over a slight rise that blocked any chance of them seeing the course, and down into a shallow valley. She walked with them totally unafraid, even though the giant Ultra towered over her by two feet, and Ron couldn't help but notice a number of furtive glances shot back in his direction.

"Just through here," she told them, directing her focus at Draake...the leader of the Outcasts...but her eyes locked onto Ron as soon as the massive Benoi had passed her.

Ron was strolling casually along as usual, his curiosity of this new world drawing most of his attention, but he managed to give her a broad smile as he drew near.

"Thank you, Kyrassa, he told her when he was close, having seen her nameplate when she first joined them.

His smooth, deep voice was like a jolt of electricity to the woman and she blushed to a rosy red hue instantly, her eyes falling to the ground and her head bowing markedly.

Ron hoped he hadn't frightened her too much, and almost stopped to make certain about that, but he figured he should leave well enough alone and kept moving.

"Good luck to you, Shartae," Kyrassa whispered, never raising her eyes. "We will be praying for you."

That surprised Ron so much that he stopped and stepped aside for the remainder of the team to pass. When it was just the two of them, Kyrassa noticed his feet standing in the path and slowly raised her head.

Ron knew everything was being watched and listened to, so was careful not to endanger the girl. He smiled at her again and reached out to stroke her chin lightly. She was quite lovely, with short, chocolate-brown hair that lifted and settled in the breeze, and eyes as black as pitch that danced in a rapid motion while she gazed up at him.

He then leaned forward as if to kiss her on the cheek, like any brash young man might do to a pretty girl, and whispered back to her.

"You are very kind, and I thank you for your prayers, Kyrassa," he told her in perfect Qaktooean, still at a loss as to how everyone seemed to know who he was.

Then he lightly kissed her cheek and pulled back with a broad boyish grin spread wide and a wink in his eye before turning to follow his teammates.

She stood there for the next ten borts, vibrating with excitement. He had actually touched her!

Barely half a hoz further on, at the bank of a dry riverbed, the Outcasts made ready to start out.

A different native Qaktoo agent...a stout young man...motioned them up to a sharply drawn line, laser-etched into the bedrock. He checked the timer floating in the air in front of them, finding they had less than one bort to begin, and turned to Draake.

"Follow the route without deviating more than twenty peors right or left, and proceed as fast as you dare. As a reminder, this is the sixth challenge, so only your first two team members will count in the scoring. Nonetheless, if you wish to, all may participate to the finish. However, at least two of you must finish...unless the others perish...to move forward in the challenge. Any questions?"

"How long is the route?" Fraidze asked.

"As long as it takes."

The three Outcasts then knew he wouldn't answer any questions that might help them, so they merely focused their eyes forward.

The course was flagged in the center every hundred peors, so that they wouldn't get confused or lost, and it led them down into that rock-strewn bed straightaway.

When the counter hit five litas, they all lowered themselves into a crouch, their eyes picking a route they thought they could negotiate.

Their first goal was the sheer face of a lifeless waterfall nearly a hoz in the distance, but their initial few steps forward showed them that this seemingly innocuous section of the race was more perilous than they'd thought. The rocks that littered the ground were almost all loose, and large enough that they could pin or break an ankle if care was forgotten.

Draake was able to move much more quickly because of his huge feet, but even he voiced complaints when some of the more jagged stones drew blood. The giant didn't falter though.

"I'll scout ahead and try to warn you of any dangers," he called to Ron and Fraidze as he trotted away.

"Okay!" Ron acknowledged, his eyes never leaving the unstable surface he negotiated.

He and Fraidze then scuttled forward as fast as they could, but it wasn't without a good deal of expletives issuing forth. The Benoi captain reached the cliff far ahead of them, but then he was similarly frustrated by that task. The stone face was shattered and fractured at every inch from cycles of climate fluctuations in the area, and therefore crumbled or shifted when he put stress on it. That being the case, the humans caught and eventually passed him by the time he reached the upper lip.

Now it was the human's turn to lead the way, and off they went.

They soon found themselves on a narrow ridge separating two deep valleys...the one they'd just left and an even grander one to the west. That western land was wide and rugged-looking but was also breathtakingly beautiful. There was a winding, twisting river at the bottom and farmland decorated the flat areas with gentle pastures edging right up to the base of the cliffs. It looked so peaceful and serene that Ron could almost hear it calling to him, but he had to tear his eyes from that scene to concentrate on the race.

The ridge led southward for several hoz, undulating and twisting, and at times, slender enough that the men slowed to a fast walk instead of a jog. They were breathing hard after the first two billots, from the pace as well as the looming danger.

Over another sharp rise, the path suddenly disappeared into a fog so dense the men might as well have been blindfolded, and that brought them all to a stop.

"What now?" Fraidze asked between deep huffs for air. The altitude was becoming a factor as well.

Draake had joined Ron and Fraidze again, but he was at a total loss. His people had poor visibility in such conditions and he was certain this stint was laced with grave peril.

Ron also felt the need for extreme caution, but they had nothing on them to use as a feeler to check the ground ahead either.

Ron glanced behind him, but already knew it was a good hoz and a half back to a point where any vegetation had lived that might offer what they needed. It took him only an instant to realize they couldn't afford to go back and lose so much time. He quickly dropped onto all fours and headed into the clammy realm.

"Follow me," he told the others.

On they went, much slower than before of course, with each of them gingerly taking short hops forward in the direction of their retreating guide. Draake took up the rearward position.

"Use caution," Ron warned. "The ground is getting very slick!"

The path again narrowed until it was dangerously slim, as if they scooted across the apex of a sharply pitched roofline. Fraidze began to grip the ground so tightly, he worried he might cramp, so he mentally forced himself to ease up...an act that was incredibly difficult for him to do.

A hundred peors in, the fog was joined by a heavy mist and that made the surface of the path get even more slippery. Too, it was cold in the darkness of the cloud bank and Ron likened it to crawling across a ridge of frozen ice cream that had just begun to melt. His hands began to lose feeling and dexterity, the very heat of his body seemingly being drawn out of him and into the earth.

Ron wondered why the Kreete would have chosen such a route until he remembered their claws. They would be slowed to a crawl as he was but they would have a tremendous advantage with those home-grown spikes. There would be no worry of a fall.

The Outcasts slipped and slid their way forward at a snail's pace for the next hoz until the fog-bank ended as abruptly as it had begun. By then however, they were soaked to the bone and shivering violently, their muscles jumping and twisting in spasms from the clammy environment and the anxiety of the task. Nonetheless, they set off again at as high a rate as they could, determined to make up the time they'd lost.

The trail quickly grew wide and firm once more and so after the next few hoz they were loosened up and flying along quite well...but that was where their speed ended.

At a sharp bend in the trail, around a large abutment of stone, the path stopped so quickly that Ron nearly went over the edge of a cliff that was easily a thousand feet tall.

"Stop!" screamed Ron, who was a step ahead of Fraidze, and he flung his arms out wide to bar his teammate from passing. Luckily the altitude was taking a toll on Draake, so he was slow...still trailing by a couple dozen peors, or his bulk would have sent them all to their deaths.

As it was, Fraidze piled into Ron anyway, but they managed to keep each other from falling, and then the big man back-peddled a few strides and bent over, hands on knees, panting.

"Holy dragen monkey dung!" Fraidze grunted. "That was close!"

Ron eased forward and scoured the scene carefully, noticing right away that there was a thick rope hanging twenty-one feet above their heads...and that it crossed the deep gorge. He searched out the anchor point above and behind him and saw a sign directly beside it. In ten different languages it read "Danger: This conveyance is designed for a single occupant at a time".

Fraidze and Draake followed Ron's stare and read the warning too. Then they looked out across the gorge to the opposite side. It was at least three hundred peors away!

Fraidze glared out across the expanse. "Conveyance my happy ass! That's a dragen death sentence! No dragen sart!" he added immediately.

"All right...all right," Ron interjected dryly, trying to calm his friend down. "We've been through worse than this. Let's get going."

"Get going?" Fraidze chirped. "Ron...I...I...I don't think I can make it! You know I'm a-a-a-afraid of heights."

Ron looked him square in the eyes and slapped him hard on the shoulder. "You won't be looking down, big man...so it shouldn't matter."

Fraidze stared back at him blankly...not at all amused.

Ron grinned at the huge fellow. "Think about it, Fraidze. To make it that far, you'll have to hang from the rope with your hands, get your feet up and lock your ankles around it, and then pull yourself across the gap. You'll be staring straight up at the rope or the sky the entire time."

Fraidze thought about it for a lita and let out a long sigh. "Y-y-yeah, I guess your right about that."

"Okay then," Ron said. "Now...just how are we going to get up to it? The rock face is undercut below the anchor."

Draake stepped right up to him and leaned over, clasping his hands together to form a basket. Fraidze just stared at him.

"One step here, then onto my shoulders," the giant told him with a sly grin.

Fraidze glanced at Ron and then back to Draake nervously. Ron smiled and moved in to help steady him as he did what the captain had instructed. Once his feet were squarely on Draake's shoulders, the huge Benoi grabbed his ankles firmly. They were both facing away from the drop-off and Fraidze was able to put his hand out and touch the rock abutment, shakily working himself up until he stood fully upright. He was still a foot short of the goal when he reached up as high as he could.

Draake then moved into position directly under the rope.

"Ready?" he called up to the shaking human man above him.

Fraidze had been carefully searching for some handhold or crack in the rock he could use to climb, so he didn't understand Draake's question. "Ready for what?" he asked.

Draake moved smoothly and with great strength, shoving the large fellow straight up to the ends of his arms. Fraidze let out an audible gasp and his eyes sprang open wide, but he gripped the rope tightly, his heart racing away.

"Holy Creator above!" he exclaimed. "Warn me next time!"

"I did," Draake told him, still holding on firmly.

"Yeah," Fraidze sighed, exasperated by the unwavering confidence of his captain. He then worked himself away from the cliff and pulled his feet up to the rope.

"All right, Fraidze," Ron said as his teammate hung across the deadly drop. "You take it nice and steady...but hurry up!"

Fraidze shot him a quick glare, but the sight of the bottom of the gorge was more than he wanted to experience, so he returned his attention to the thread of safety he squeezed desperately in his fists.

"I don't think I can do it," he finally said after a few litas of hesitation.

"I'm afraid you don't have much of a choice, my friend. You have to focus your mind on the rope. That's all. There is nothing else. Grab the rope, get your feet into position, and start moving. It'll be over before you know it."

"Yeah," Fraidze replied, "th-th-that's what I'm afraid of."

Ron could see the pulse of his heart hammering away because of a prominent vein on his neck, but there really was nothing else they could do. Each man had to do it on his own.

Out he went toward their newest goal, and those left behind immediately began to feel the ebbing of their patience.

"This'll take forever!" Draake said while Fraidze did everything he could to put the task out of his mind.

"Just concentrate on the rope!" he told himself resolutely. "And keep moving."

"Don't think about the time," Ron told the giant. "Every team has the same task, so it'll all even out."

They drew quiet at that, but watching his slow progress still tortured the adrenaline-fueled men. Finally Fraidze closed in on the far side and Ron got into position.

He clambered up the mighty Benoi in a wink and leaped for the anchor pin that held the rope, easily reaching it. There he held his position as calmly as a mountain climber...his pulse pounding slowly and steadily as if bored.

When Fraidze dropped to the far ledge, Ron set off, but he didn't use the method of his friend, he headed out hand over hand like a chimpanzee would have, and he practically flew!

When he reached Fraidze a few borts later, the bigger man stood with his mouth agape yet again, marveling at the incomparable fellow who never seemed to stop amazing him.

Ron hit the ground nimbly and spun about to watch his captain, hoping he didn't suffer from the same phobia that Fraidze did.

Draake didn't. Qaktoo's gravity was light to him, so he leaped up and gripped the rope as easily as Ron had, and with his abnormally long arms, he was across even quicker. He hit the ground running, and they all sped away without a single glance back.

The next billot found them dropping in altitude somewhat and racing across some high country hills covered with thick, lush green grass. They were having fun at that point, with no apparent danger around. But they knew that wouldn't last.

The fun ended when they once more found themselves at the edge of a cliff. This wasn't nearly the drop at the gorge, but it would still test their nerves and will to continue.

The three Outcasts found themselves staring downward with mixed feelings. It was a thirty peors long drop into a pool of water. At the western edge of the pool, there was a clearly marked path leading off to the north. They looked around for any other trail to get down there, but it wasn't long before they knew exactly what they had to do.

Fraidze looked sick. He turned to voice his discomfort again, but Ron didn't even hesitate. He grabbed the larger man firmly and shoved, jumping with him to make sure he fell properly. Halfway down Ron heard the echoing laughter of Draake Tarbold, and then they struck the water.

Ron got away from Fraidze as quickly as he could when they went in, immensely grateful that the water was so deep, and then waved up at the Ultra before swimming powerfully toward the point he'd spotted from above. He felt and then heard a huge splash behind him and knew Draake was on his way too.

Ron cut through the dense water like a fish, and hauled himself out immediately to scout ahead for the next phase. It was a narrow trail heading out of the canyon.

Ron returned to the edge of the pool to find Fraidze lying sprawled on the ground and sputtering water. He then went straight to his friend and helped him up.

"You okay, big man?" Ron asked, grinning at the large fellow.

For a reply, Fraidze swung his huge fist and caught Ron solidly on the chin.

That knocked Ron completely off his feet and he went down hard, rolling instinctively and springing to an attack posture facing Fraidze. His eyes narrowed as he glared at his teammate, and his internal fires stoked for a fight...the gladiator in him suddenly awakened.

"That's for throwing me off a dragen cliff!" Fraidze growled at him, his own visage dark and menacing.

Ron and Fraidze stood squared off for a few tense litas while Draake struggled to make it ashore.

When Fraidze did not advance the fight though, Ron quickly cooled down, realizing his friend's perspective.

"Fair enough," Ron said solemnly, standing erect again and turning to see Draake's odd method of swimming.

Qaktoo was a heavy world, but the water was still too thin to allow him to float, so he had to let his body sink to the bottom, and then push off hard enough to reach the air...and then repeat the sequence as he moved slowly forward. It was almost comical to Ron, but it worked well enough to have him crawling out a bort later.

The massive Benoi slogged forward until he stood with the men.

"What's next?" he inquired while he panted and wiped the water from his eyes.

Ron pointed to their next route. "We have to go that way. Let's move!"

That was that. No one gave it another thought and they were all racing down the path with water spraying off their wet hair and limbs.

Only two hoz down the way they came to another juncture in the segmented test of nerves, brains, and brawn. It was a cave.

At the entrance to the cleft of rock stood a single sign. It read; The Gauntlet.

### Chapter Forty-seven

### The Gauntlet

The trio stood for a short time staring into the blackness of the entrance, wondering at the meaning of the ominous designation.

Inside the dark space, a single, narrow path was lit. It was oddly crowned and appeared to be the only solid section of the ground, and that gave them further pause. They tossed a few small stones on either side of the path and listened for an echo. They heard none.

Ron crouched down next to the opening and studied the cylindrically shaped route closer because he'd noticed a fine line at the outer end of it.

Fraidze took a cautious step forward, intending to have a look around after his eyes had adjusted to the dim interior, but when his foot touched the path, it rolled right out from under him.

Luckily Draake was directly beside him and so caught his arm before he was pitched over the side.

Ron's hand snapped forward too and grabbed Fraidze's leg as Draake hauled him backward, but he watched the path closely as well.

Instead of an earthen walkway, it was actually a three-foot-wide stone cylinder that was balanced along its longitudinal center. It made Ron think of the log-rolling contests he'd seen on TV. His mind swam with dire thoughts of falling into the abyss, but then another twist came to light when a puff of wind struck his face. Ron braced his knees on the solid ground carefully and then eased his body forward while holding the 'log' still with his hands. When his head was inside the darkness, he waited for his eyes to adjust.

After a few litas, a long, low growl rumbled from his chest. Along with the challenge of the rolling footpath, there were also swinging, spinning, and flying obstacles...some of which were cutting tools!

The first section of the gauntlet looked to be about fifteen peors long and had seven smaller cylinders hanging vertically from their ends, each swinging side to side across the path. They were spaced evenly apart but were of differing lengths and so they each swung at a unique speed and repetition.

Beside the rolling walkway, flying in an elliptical path that let it overlap the route, was a pair of swords mounted on some odd conveyer. Every few litas, the blades would lunge in and swipe a foot above the path, and each time it was at a new location. Then they would disappear into the darkness of the room. Only the sound of them whistling through the air would warn the contestant. The only saving grace was that they were at least shielded with edge guards.

There was something else that flashed across the dimly lit path, but Ron was studying the blades and couldn't make it out. Undoubtedly it was some other threat that would knock the player from the path.

Ron backed out of the cave carefully and stood up. His expression was grim as he explained what he'd seen.

"Okay," Ron then said. "Who wants to go first?"

"You're the most agile!" Draake answered immediately, a broad grin spread wide across his bestial face. "Show us how it's done."

Fraidze had no problem with that either, so Ron smiled back wryly and edged forward.

"Hey," Friadze added quickly. "What if one of us holds this cylinder still until you're across? Then you can hold it still for us from the other end."

"Sounds like a plan to me," Ron admitted.

Ron held onto Fraidze's shoulder while he gained his footing on the moving stone, testing its resistance. There was a slight drag built into it to allow the contestant a margin of error, although that was very slim.

Next, Draake placed his huge foot halfway on the device, stabilizing it nicely. Ron then let go his hold on his partner and started down the length slowly, his mind wondering if there were any other hidden dangers.

He found the first one almost immediately.

Six feet down the length, the path suddenly rolled, catching Ron off guard and nearly pitching him into the first of the swinging poles.

"Look out!" Fraidze screamed as Ron fought for balance.

Ron shot forward clear of the aerial threat, but his ears told him of a different danger so he jumped. The blade swept neatly under his feet before he landed and wobbled for a few litas, fighting desperately to steady the log. Once in control again he glanced down to see a very fine mating line dividing that section from the first.

"Nice!" he muttered before starting forward again. "You guys saw that, right?" he called back to the team.

"Yeah," they replied, both leaning in to watch the test closely.

Ron kept his movements small after that and skittered along adroitly, dodging the swinging peril with ease. A couple of small disks whizzed through the air close to him but he felt they were more to startle than to injure the player. Either way, he avoided them too, and in another bort he stood on solid ground between that first section and the second. He was cautious to watch for anything coming out of the darkness, but it was safe.

"Send the next man!" he shouted back, but Fraidze was already getting a feel for the rolling log.

Ron moved to grasp his section of the pathway, but a door slid down in front of him before he could take a step.

"So everyone is on their own," he concluded.

Ron faced forward once more and ventured out. The following section was twenty peors long and the path was again shaped like a cylinder...only this time it was split in two down the middle. Ron cautiously put his foot on the surface and the resulting pressure forced the two halves to move apart. Ron tried two more times to figure out why the pieces split before reaching to his pack and removing one of the straps that held it firmly to his torso. A quick flip and he was tying the halves together. He stood up once more and stepped onto the contraption. It held until his full weight was on it, and then the parts began to spread again. Ron crouched quickly and placed his feet opposing themselves on the round cylinder and held the halves together by force. That worked well enough for him to snatch up the strap and see it had been cut from underneath by something very sharp.

From then on he stayed in a deep crouch and scooted along the path using his hands and feet to hold the parts together. It was awkward and tiresome, especially when more of the swinging threats swooped down at him (not all side to side either...two ran along the path). He had just enough time between them to hop forward as quickly as he could and dive down at the last instant.

When he finally stood on solid ground again, he was huffing heavily and vibrating from the strain. After a few litas of deep, calming breaths he looked back and saw Fraidze staring dumbstruck at him from across the length. Ron smiled again and shrugged his shoulders. Another door then blocked them from viewing one another.

Next, the path took a turn to the right and went through a narrow cleft in the stone wall. Ron feared that Draake might not fit in there, but he slipped through the cave swiftly and came out in a septagonal (seven-sided) room that was fifty feet across. The floor appeared to be made of large blocks of tiles with a different symbol on each one. The walls were colored blue and red in an alternating pattern, with the entry wall remaining the dull gray of natural stone.

When Ron stepped out into the room, one of the red walls to his right immediately began to flash brighter red in a series of four quick pulses. After seven litas the blue wall forward and to his left flashed in pulses of three, then the red wall to the far left jumped into action with five.

Ron watched this coded sequence for almost a full bort before shaking his head with confusion and taking his first step onto the floor grid. The one peor-wide tile cracked and crumbled out from under him instantly, causing him to scramble backwards to the entrance again.

"Shit!" he hissed, looking into the black depths of the empty hole. He had no idea how deep it went, sending his mind into overdrive.

"What are the signals trying to tell me?" he pondered...but only for a moment.

With a quick decision he stepped onto the block in the direction of the first flashing wall. It held firm. Ron smiled.

Three more tiles and he headed toward the blue wall. Suddenly he understood. The flashing code was the combination across the room. His memory was so good that he was out the other side in only a few more litas and striding quickly off to the next challenge.

The following chamber was a simple round cavern...like a silo...that had seven pieces of oddly shaped blocks scattered on the floor. The only exit Ron saw was an opening twenty feet above the floor.

"I get this one," he said softly to himself.

It was a typical problem of geometric, abstract construction. To reach the exit, he had to arrange the blocks in a way that would allow him to gain the appropriate height. There was a catch though. To get the structure to stand, an oddly shaped lynch pin...set at a forty-five degree angle...had to be inserted while the last section was held in place. Ron inserted the pin partly to allow room for the final block, but the attitude it sat in allowed it to slide right back out. And the final piece was large and heavy and needed both his hands to place it.

He stood there for several litas, racking his brain and trying to find a way around the predicament while also realizing that time was continuously running.

"It's as if they hung the pin in midair and built the stairs around...," he muttered, shaking his head in bewilderment. But then, as he stared at the remaining sections lying on the floor, he suddenly stopped with a flashing epiphany. "No way!"

Ron instantly leaped into action and dismantled what he'd already constructed. Then he placed the pin into the first piece it went through and lowered it against the ground, gauging the distance from the wall by sight. From there he reconstructed the entire assembly, which would have been far too heavy for him to move had it not been for a remarkable engineering aid called leverage.

He'd pictured the entire assembly in his mind and had realized that the colossal weight of the structure had been designed to help him, not cause him trouble; its base being far more massive than the rest. When he laid the final block into position, it was no more than a strong heft to lift it past its fulcrum and allow it to settle into place on its own.

"I'll be damned!" Ron smiled when the huge stone stairway stood before him. He took a moment to draw out the design in the dust on the floor, and then up he raced.

Down another long, narrow corridor brought him to the next section. He had to duck slightly to enter an arched doorway, and again he wondered how Draake could possibly fit through there too.

The adjoining space seemed more like a wide hallway than a room, and was sparingly lit with torches set at regular intervals along a peculiar niche cut a foot deep into the walls at Ron's eye level. The domed ceiling was more than twice his height above him and was decorated only with the flickering torch-light. Beside the entryway were two pools of water of undeterminable depth with a bucket in each, setting about a foot below the surface. A sturdy chain was attached to the buckets, as well as to a long, wooden pole that spanned the width of the room. Its length was such that it protruded well into a slotted groove in the wall, and that slot was connected to the niche with the torches.

In front of him, the floor was solid, smooth, unbroken stone, so he ventured forward. His eyes scanned the walls and ceiling with extreme intensity, looking for some form of trap or danger.

At the far end of the room was a flat slab of rock a foot thick, two peors across, and three peors high. He tried to move it but found it as immutable as the walls themselves. However, at each side there was a large, cavernous recess that was dark.

Ron leaned in to examine one of those depressions and noted that it wasn't a solid alcove. It appeared to be moving freely...not much, but with little effort, like a coffee cup gently rocking from a hook in the cupboard.

He reached up and plucked one of the torches from the long slotted perch and shoved it into the narrow depression gingerly. The odd space was two feet wide, four feet to the back-most edge, and a peor deep. He felt of it and then gave it a shove, watching as the entire container shifted slightly, and a sheen of water reflected the torchlight back at him.

"It's a tank of some sort," Ron surmised.

He took a step back and scanned the area again. The tanks were hanging in a slightly larger slot that he guessed must continue below the floor. Then he considered their purpose.

"They're counterweights!" he realized quickly.

His eyes flashed back to the water buckets at the other end of the room and he suddenly understood the challenge.

Ron didn't pause another lita. He slammed the torch into its holder and dashed back to the entry. Maneuvering himself under the very center of the long pole, he lifted the yoke off its rest and immediately realized three things. One; each bucket held at least twenty gallons of fluid which made it quite a load. Two; the supporting pole, or yoke, did not fit between the walls without tilting it a good amount, which would certainly spill much of the water before they cleared the floor level, so it must stay in its designed trough. Three; that intended path forced Ron to heft the weight of those buckets to his eye-level...and hold that weight at that awkward point to allow the yoke to move down the torch niche.

With the twin weights dangling barely two inches off the ground, Ron set off to the other end of the room. The load was hefty, but not unmanageable, and he made it quickly enough, depositing his cargo swiftly into the large containers. Before he headed back, Ron shoved the torch back into one of the tanks to judge just how large it was. His face showed his assessment. They were large!

Back to work he went. He twisted the pole to clear the slot and raced back to the beginning, slipping it neatly into position so the buckets would fit down into their respective pools and refill.

For the next ten borts Ron repeated those steps a dozen times, but the door did not move an inch. He took a moment to try and use his own strength to raise the stone gate but it was as solid as ever.

"There must be a weighted catch that's locking it out," he told himself as he huffed from the strain. He glanced up and noted he'd knocked a third of the torches off their rests with the yoke, and scolded himself to be more careful.

As he gathered the pole once more though, a sound caused him to stop and turn back to the tanks he'd been filling. He took in a deep breath and held it, his ears absorbing the noise.

"Son of a dragen whore!" he cursed the infernal contraption, and then he broke back into his efforts.

The sound he'd heard was water falling. The tanks were not made of a water-tight material. They leaked!

Ron redoubled his efforts from then on, and after another ten borts he could see the water splashing inside the containers when he emptied his buckets. He was down to only two torches left burning though, his arms shook violently when he carried the buckets, and he was gasping for breath at every moment. It didn't look good.

Two more passes and only a single torch remained, but it went careening from its mount on the following run. Ron didn't even slow down. He'd memorized the route long ago and just kept to the task, but he soon wondered if somehow the Kreete had managed to rig the door to make it impossible to trip. He could hear and feel the water sloshing back at him as he topped off the tanks in the pitch black of the room, and suddenly he began to fear he couldn't keep up his efforts any longer.

But as he slowed his pace a bit to ease the water into the tanks less violently, Ron at last heard what he'd been anticipating for half a billot...Click!

He tossed the yoke aside and shoved at the thick gate, attacking it like a desperate animal that senses escape. It slid smoothly up and he dove through it before he even considered there might be danger beyond it.

Luckily, there was not.

Ron lay panting on the cold stone of the corridor for several litas, his energy drained dramatically from that last test. There was dim lighting in the tunnel and he could see an opening further on, but he elected not to hurry to it just yet.

He had at least taken some good drinks of water during that last phase and so wasn't too parched, but he was beginning to wonder just how much longer the trial would last.

Finally, as the large flat stone behind him began slowly descending to make ready for its next victim, Ron rolled to his knees and regained his feet, shuffling forward on quivering legs.

Ron entered a large room that was perfectly round and twenty peors high. The walls were completely lined with thick wooden boards...looking like a thousand four-by-sixes standing on edge and tightly fitted side by side to form the thickest barrel he'd ever seen. Throughout the entire breadth of the wooden facade were holes about an inch in diameter, and from the ceiling were easily a hundred strands of heavy, braided rope. Each one of those was cut to a different length. Some reached all the way to the floor while others didn't make even halfway down from the high ceiling, well out of reach.

There was no exit that he could make out on the ground level save the one he'd entered, so he expanded his search until he found it. Across the forty-peor-wide room, up at the very top of the wall, was the only opening wide enough to get a man through. Directly before that doorway was a small ledge with a rope that went all the way to the floor. It would be easy to scale that line, step onto the sill, and keep moving.

Ron pondered that for barely an instant though, knowing nothing would ever be that easy in the Games. He ventured a step forward anyway however, and received a clue as to one of the hazards of this test. A small projectile puffed out of one of the thousands of holes across the way and struck him right in the stomach. He immediately retraced his step with a sharp grimace as the object bounced to the granite floor. It was a perfectly round stone.

"Son of a..." Ron grumbled, instantly wondering if that was the extent of the weapons of the room. "Okay, so if they don't want me stepping on the floor, then I guess it's an aerial avenue I'm supposed to take."

He started to grab one of the ropes right next to him when a thought flashed across his mind setting his eyes peering around at the rough wooden walls more intently. What he saw was a great deal of torn and splintered wood. It wasn't dented like it would have been if mere rocks had been fired all around. Instead, it showed evidence of something small and sharp having struck at innumerous points and then been ripped back out.

Ron cautiously gripped the rope, leaned to the side hard, and gave it a quick tug before releasing it again.

As soon as his fingers turned loose the dangling cable, he heard a series of soft "whooshes", and then rapid-fire hissing before a matching series of "thunks". Directly where he would have been if he'd been climbing the rope, an arrow had sped past and now vibrated from the wall. Further up the length, six other arrows vibrated in like fashion and each had come from a different height and angle.

"Shit!" Ron moaned, his eyes scanning the space yet again.

He tried another tug and a similar action followed, only the arrows flew from totally new locations. There would be no way of figuring out a pattern he could work around.

Ron tried three different ropes that he could reach, and they all had like results.

"I guess it'll have to be the floor," Ron concluded, feeling he would rather be pummeled by the small rocks than skewered by arrows.

He moved forward onto the first tile and received a harsh consequence. Instead of a single rock, he was fired at from all directions and struck at virtually every part of his body, forcing him to retreat once more.

"What the hell?" he grumbled while rubbing several of the nastier hits. "I guess that first missile was just a warning shot."

It seemed apparent to him then that he had to focus on the ropes.

Ron gripped the first rope again and pulled, but didn't release tension on it, wondering if the arrows would keep coming. They did not. In fact, nothing at all happened.

"Huh!" he wondered. "Maybe if I keep tension on it, the arrows don't fire."

With that plan, Ron began his ascent. It was slow and arduous climbing to keep from jerking on the line, but he was moving upward. By the time he'd reached the ceiling though, he was dripping perspiration and wondering how to make the transition across the room without becoming a pin-cushion. That's when he noticed something he'd initially missed.

The uppermost section of the curved wall, extending downward about six feet, had no sign of damage on the wooden walls. There were hundreds of holes like where the arrows came out, but no impact marks.

"So that's the safety-zone!" Ron surmised.

It was still incredibly difficult to move because the distance between ropes was at least three feet, which meant a substantial stretch and a daring transfer that brought his lower extremities exceedingly close to the hazards below. Nevertheless, Ron headed for the exit.

Each time he swung to the next rope and heard the stealthy missiles flying through the room, he couldn't help but tense, expecting the pain of an arrow...but it did not come.

Finally, after nineteen such transferences, Ron hung at the threshold of the doorway that led out of that deadly room. He reached out his foot for the ledge and suddenly paused. Something in his gut told him to use caution. His whole body was quivering once again from the strain of hanging in the air for the last forty borts, but still he scanned the area very carefully.

After a few more moments he pressed his foot on the surface, still holding on to the rope tightly. When a third of his weight was on the ledge, it suddenly dropped away...it being hinged on the lower edge.

### Chapter Forty-eight

### One More Time

Ron gasped hard and swung back, his fingertips still connected to the large rope and they instantly sunk deeper into its braided coils.

How many men had fallen into that little trap by simply hopping onto the apparent safety of the sill?

A half-lita later, a new rope...closer to the exit portal...unfurled from above and dangled where the little ledge had been.

Ron eyed the line suspiciously, but resigned to take it after only a short pause. He guessed that it was the reward for all those who'd evaded the trap...and too, there was no other way to reach the opening.

He swung over to it, more arrows hissing beneath him from the movement, and locked his left hand on tightly while his right still remained clamped to the other. There was nothing to fear though. No new threats sprang from the walls.

A moment later Ron was finally standing in the exit and eyeing the dark portal. He took a quick look back at that last hazard and noted easily three hundred arrows now decorated the wooden walls down to the floor so far below. Then he faced forward again and disappeared into the darkness.

The way turned out to be a passage through solid rock that was some twenty feet thick before it opened up into a well-lit space approximately thirty peors long that ended at another small opening, the only exit.

The walls of the room were made of rough-hewn rock and were dark, rusty-brown in color. That section was designed much as the first two had been, except that the path was flat instead of rounded, and it was narrow...only about a foot wide. The ominous void of darkness surrounding it at floor level had returned as well, and in fact, it looked like the entire floor of the cavern beside the path was filled with jet-black ink.

On either side of that tenuous sliver of ground, about three feet away, were what looked like a row of telephone poles suspended over the dark void. However, mounted into them at right angles were long, thick rods at multiple levels.

Having just negotiated the other areas of the gauntlet, Ron immediately began to get a bad feeling about this new challenge. Too, the room was eerily quiet, which further set him on edge.

Ron took a single step into the lighted room and suddenly realized he'd prefer the quiet as noise erupted from every direction and the room literally burst into life. The poles began whirling about, sending the horizontal rods flinging across the path he would have to negotiate. That appeared bad enough, but on top of that there was an odd, rumbling sound that echoed around the room like rolling thunder.

It didn't take long before Ron understood just what was happening when large spheres appeared out of the inky blackness and began flying through the air across the little path.

"Holy shit!" he groaned.

Deducing what his eyes and ears told him, in this section balls dropped from some area above, down large tubes that went under the lighted level of the floor. Then at some point they changed direction and shot out across the room at about two feet above the path, and then smash into the opposite wall. The really bad thing was that the balls were actually rocks, and they were the size of basketballs! Not only would they knock the contestant from the path, but could also break bones, or even kill!

Ron stood staring for a few litas to get the tempo of the swinging poles and the flying stones, but another twist soon caught his eye. A door slid neatly across the opening behind him while yet another began a slow fall on the far side, where it would eventually block the exit. He guessed he had barely thirty litas before that way was shut. Time was ticking!

He sprinted forward for six feet, stopped just short of a rod at chest level, leaped back a peor to dodge a rock, and then surged ahead once more. Three more times like that left him only ten feet from his goal, but at that point two poles swung opposite each other in quick succession while the missiles seemed to be timed to that same point when they were clear.

The exit doorway was only three feet above the ground by then and so Ron dashed for it the next time the poles crossed. He sprang up as high as he could to avoid the granite spheres and landed on his hands and shoulders where he rolled tightly before diving under the door.

As his body slid to a stop on the rocky ground, the light from the room he'd just vacated disappeared.

Ron lay there panting again for a few litas as his eyes adjusted to the dim surroundings, but he didn't dawdle long. As soon as he could make out the confines of the tunnel he now occupied, he was up and moving again.

That route was much wider than the previous ones.

Ron hugged the edge of the walkway to avoid any traps or pits that might be in the center, and picked up the pace when he deduced the brightness of the upcoming portal wasn't artificial. His footfalls quickened, but his heart began to ease up from the intense pounding it had grown used to, for in another hundred steps he was out in the daylight once more.

He then found himself on a narrow shelf of rock and rejoiced, absorbing the feel of the sun, the strong breeze, and the scents of the mountains that lay all about.

He was clear of the gauntlet, but still had to free-climb down a thirty-peor-tall cliff to the finish, and as everyone knows, it's much more difficult to climb down rather than up.

The face of the stone was pock-marked well enough to allow for good progress though, and so Ron was on solid ground again without too much alarm.

He dashed the final fifty peors down a sloping grade to the designated spot marked by a flag and a med-station. And considering the level of difficulty of that last stretch, he felt confident that station would get well used.

Ron walked about for a long while, cooling off and quenching his thirst, and then stood aside waiting for his teammates. However, he began to get concerned when the time dragged by. Fifteen borts later, Fraidze finally appeared up at the top of the wall, and he watched the big man descend shakily, sporting two broken arrows protruding from his body...one in the left thigh, and one in the upper back. After him, Draake followed fairly quickly, but it took him a long time to scale down the cliff because the handholds simply weren't large enough for his enormous fingers. He finally dropped the last ten peors to the ground and raced off to the finish. He was bruised, but not bloody.

By the time the Benoi captain crossed the line, Fraidze was resting quietly in the Med-unit preparing for surgery to remove the arrow tips.

The next day, the Outcasts were put on standby, waiting for each of the other teams to have their turn. Day three introduced them to route number three.

It was equally as arduous, and had several areas that pushed the men's nerves to the edge, but instead of the Gauntlet, it had a different way of testing the team's ultimate abilities...whitewater.

The Outcasts found themselves at the very bottom of the thousand foot gorge they'd crossed on the previous day, where the route ended at a trio of boats sitting alone on a shoreline. And before them raged a river that would no doubt have been rated as a class five excursion on Earth.

One of the kayaks was enormous, obviously designed to accommodate Draake, and the other two were normal sized, for Ron and Fraidze.

They all looked long and hard at one another, but didn't waste much time trying to bolster the others' confidence. None of them had any experience with such crafts, but they would just have to deal with it.

Ron led the way as usual, simply because he was nimble enough to leap into his boat faster than the others, and away they went.

He used his incomparable skills of navigation to plot their course, and then just battled his way along. It was grueling and pulse-pounding work, but after the first few hoz, he found himself actually grinning. He'd never experienced anything as fast and as exhilarating as that gushing, swirling, frothing maze of danger.

Five times did he roll over, finding himself upside down in the frigid water, when he misjudged some small feature of the waterway, but each time, a quick flip of his paddle righted him again. And with a hard shake to clear his eyes of his wet hair, he merely plowed forward, locking that mistake into his memory so as not to repeat it.

Twenty hoz of that war against the water ended abruptly, and none of them saw it coming.

After a particularly nasty stage of huge boulders forcing the fluid to toss them from one side of the river to the other, Ron cleared a massive spray just in time to see the next drop in elevation. However, what he didn't see was that it was a good fifty peors high.

"Oh, shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" he yelled when he was airborne, but by then all he could do was prepare for the landing.

Fortunately, the water down below was deep and extremely aerated by the falls, so the impact wasn't deadly, but even so, when he did strike it, his lungs were emptied violently.

Ron spent the next few borts struggling to the surface and regaining the ability to breathe.

Once he was inhaling again, he saw the finish was barely a hundred peors away, so he looked back for his teammates before moving on.

It didn't take long before Fraidze and Draake both popped up like corks, with both of them sputtering and gasping just as he'd done. The sight made him smile again.

Ron coughed deeply one more time and then headed for the shore.

Round three came two days later, and introduced them to course number one.

That test had a completely different feel to it. There were no long distance runs, freezing water, or disconcerting puzzles to unravel.

Draake, Fraidze, and Ron were delivered to the edge of a tropical rainforest. It was hot and humid, with the buzz of insects filling the air.

A middle-aged man greeted them all as they exited the shuttle, and then bade them follow him to the starting line.

Before them lay a quarter hoz of open grassland leading up to a wall of greenery that marked the beginning of a huge jungle. Their path led straight into that verdant sea.

"Follow the marked trail as swiftly as you dare," he told them all before stepping aside.

They stretched like any other day as the counter drew down to zero, and when the chime sounded, they set out.

Directly at the forest they dashed, only to be brought to an immediate halt when they reached it. From there, the way was straight up.

"Oh, sart, man!" Fraidze grumbled. "I'm not going to like this!"

The trio climbed until they stood in the swaying branches of the canopy some hundred feet above ground...and then the real challenge began.

The path turned out to be a ropes course of aerial danger for the next fifteen hoz!

Ron found it to be quite the adventure, but with Draake's size and weight, and Fraidze aversion to heights, they moved rather slowly at the beginning.

After the first billot though, Draake realized the drag he was putting on the team and ordered the men forward.

"Go, Ronin," he said forcefully. "Take Fraidze and go. Only the first two count anyway, and I cannot keep up."

Ron didn't like the idea of splitting up, but he was right.

"Fraidze," Ron said to his friend, looking him straight in the eye, "we have to speed up...okay?"

Fraidze stared back with staunch determination in his eyes. He had to step up. This was his moment.

"Watch everything I do and repeat it!" Ron told him. "And do not, under any circumstances, hesitate. If you second guess yourself at the wrong instant, you will die! Understand?"

Fraidze took in a long, deep breath and clenched his jaws tight.

"You can do it!" Ron said sternly. "I know you can!"

Fraidze wanted to acknowledge his friend's sentiment, but couldn't vocalize it. His nerves were stretched too thin. He merely stared back and nodded once.

From there, Ron began to speed up gradually, hoping that Fraidze could be coaxed along by his example. Another billot was all it took too, before they were both skittering along the swinging bridges, leaping across ten-foot wide gaps, and stutter-stepping oddly spaced logs floating between trunks on free-swinging ropes.

Halfway to the far side of the course though, they came to a task that Ron surely thought would be the end of Fraidze. It was the same gorge that they'd crossed on the first day and kayaked down the third. This time though, they were at a section that was very narrow, only ten peors across, but there was no bridge, no rope, and no way around.

Ron and Fraidze both saw it as they climbed down from their lofty position in the treetops, but when they stood at the edge, looking down at a hundred peor drop, it was something altogether different.

The opposite cliff was draped with thick, hanging vines for the first hundred feet down, creating a natural net, and Ron was confident he would make it rather easily. But he feared for his friend...especially when Fraidze turned away from the gorge, his face markedly ashen, and headed back to the forest with his head hanging down.

"Shit!" Ron thought. "How the hell will I be able to get him to..."

His thought stayed unfinished in his mind however, because before he could come up with some form of encouragement, Fraidze turned on his heel and bolted for the ravine.

"What the...?" Ron started to say, but couldn't finish that either, before his partner flashed past him first.

Fraidze didn't show the slightest indecision or hesitancy. He merely raced to the edge and launched himself into the void with a roaring howl issuing from his lips.

Ron rushed back to the cliff and watched as he slammed into a huge bundle of vines on the far side and began scrambling upward swiftly.

At that point, Ron just grinned madly and followed him.

They both made the leap safely and were back in the upper section of the jungle in no time, racing along between the towering trees like two great apes.

Three billots later, they crossed the finish. They were soaked with sweat and exhausted, but their adrenaline had carried them through without fail.

"Fraidze, my friend," Ron said to him when they were swaying along shoulder to shoulder after the finish, their legs feeling wobbly and weak, "I am immensely impressed! I would never have thought you could..."

Fraidze suddenly bent over and puked!

He stayed like that for a few borts, until he'd heaved every shred of food and water he possibly could have...and then he staggered a few more steps and fell over, completely unconscious.

Ron started to panic, waving a mednaut over to him frantically, but he could feel a strong pulse Fraidze' neck and could see his chest moving up and down. That allowed him to hold his emotions to just worry for the next few moments.

The mednaut scanned him thoroughly in one pass, and then floated off to the side, taking up a 'ready' position.

"What's wrong with him?" Ron demanded angrily. "Why aren't you doing something?"

"He is not injured, or in distress of any kind," the mechanical physician replied.

"What?" Ron growled. "Then why did he collapse?"

"He feinted," the mednaut replied.

Ron stared at the machine for several litas, dumbfounded. Then he looked at Fraidze lying there flat on the ground and began to laugh.

Draake finished almost two billots later. He'd fought his way through the treetops slowly yet defiantly, and felt proud when he finally crossed the finish.

Ron and Fraidze greeted him there and they all loaded into the shuttle a while after that. Ron kept Fraidze 'condition' to himself, but asked the huge fellow about the leap over the gorge.

"I was worried that the vines might not support your weight, Draake. I guess they did though, huh?"

The giant just shook his head. "I made that little jump with room to spare," he replied.

Because of the length of the courses, it took six days for all the teams to complete them, and only afterward did any one team know the score of the others'. That came early on day seven. At that time, the contestants, as well as the vast audience, were once again shocked at the results.

Instead of exposing their entire team to the hazardous courses, the Kreete had opted to use only the minimum number of players plus one, so they'd sent only three. Undoubtedly they'd expected those highly trained warriors to breeze through the trials without a hitch, but during the whitewater portion, one of their team...Borsh Cildek...sustained a bad collision with a boulder, crushing his skull as well as several bones in his torso. He required emergency rescue, which gave him a DNF (Did Not Finish).

Therefore, since they hadn't all finished, they incurred a penalty...but the Outcasts had not.

That unfortunate fact made the scoring more problematic. The Kreete wanted to argue the formula the judges used, but since they'd just utilized the exact same circumstance to claim victory against the Outcasts in the ice race, they could hardly turn it around now.

So, even though the Destroyers' first two men were slightly faster than the first two Outcasts on the combined time...the penalty deduction forced a ruling that stated their teams were tied.

Once more, it was unprecedented in the history of the Games that such an event had occurred. However, there was a contingency written into the rules. For a tie-breaker, the guidelines allowed one representative from each team to take a second pass. The judges pulled a selection of which course to use from a blind drawing. It was the number 2 course, the Gauntlet.

Draake and Fraidze unanimously conceded that Ron would race for the Outcasts.

Ron eyed the results from that particular round and saw that his opponent had made the initial pass much faster than he had, but he also knew he could have surpassed the time if he hadn't held back to guide his own squad. Now he would find out exactly what he could do.

Since the Kreete team had posted the superior time before taking the penalty, they would go last, so Ron would just have to pace himself. That was fine with him.

When the start cannon went off, Ron lit out like he'd been shot out of it. He flew across the riverbed of loose stones as if they were flat concrete, his feet never hitting a rock that wouldn't hold his weight with solid authority. (He'd memorized their placement on the first round)

The cliff was even easier. His figure seemed to be hauled upward on a hoist the way he scaled that wall. Every hand and foothold matched his reach with the ease of a ladder. Atop that ledge Ron tore out across the valley with the lithe grace of a gazelle...and nearly as swiftly too.

Ron saw his chance at showing the entire Triad the worth of a human, and he reveled in it.

He made it through the main body of the event with a fast, smooth run...but he had no idea how well his opponent would do on besting his own time, so he pushed himself at every opportunity. He ran and climbed and leaped as if he was merely litas behind his Kreete counterpart and his life was hanging on the balance.

At the gorge crossing, Ron recognized it as he approached, and so he scaled the rocky outcropping that the anchor pin was attached to from the opposite side. He came out about five feet above the point of the pin and merely dropped down to it, catching it with his fingers as his body flew past. (And he accomplished that feat of extreme agility at a point that was completely out over the edge of the cliff!)

At the water jump, he hit the upper edge at a dead sprint and saved thirty peors of swimming in the catch pool.

When Ron reached the Gauntlet, he stood at the beginning of that final section for barely a lita, timing the swinging logs in a flash. Knowing it was an all or nothing situation, Ron sprinted forward onto the rolling path without a thought, and without a single wobble. He made it past the first three swingers...stopped on a dime to allow one to go by close enough to move his hair, and then danced through the last three in a jerky, surging motion.

Afterward, he actually dove into the next part, grasping the split log on either side and hopping down its length like a gigantic frog.

He flashed through the coded room, flew up the rope danger, and raced onward to the next.

Ron reached the last room extremely fast and quickly stop-started his way to the final twenty feet. His attention was so focused on the timing of those rock-spitting hazards however, that he failed to notice the stony walkway was coated with something. Thereby, when he surged forward in a move that should have easily gotten him clear, his feet slipped and he fell to the path on his hands and knees.

That exact instant, the last tube spit out one of those deadly granite missiles and it hit him square in the side.

More than thirty billion humanoids scattered across the Kreete Empire all leaped to their feet when that happened, not a one of them breathing. And a certain petite blonde woman sitting fifty hoz away at an immense auditorium set up explicitly for a visiting audience felt her heart stop as well.

Ron's upper arm snapped horribly and he was thrown from the path where his head struck the rock platform at the very end of the course. He was dazed badly and barely coherent, but somehow Ron got his good arm atop the platform and held on while his head cleared. Then he swung his legs back onto the path and scrambled onward, blood draining down the side of his face and out of the tear in his arm from the compound fracture there.

Ron had felt confident he'd made up some time through the gauntlet, but now he faced scaling down the cliff with only one hand, and he dreaded the time he'd lose there. Nonetheless, he attacked the challenge with the fearlessness he always showed and was making good speed when the inevitable happened. During a handhold transition, his foothold let go and down he went.

Cache Kuar's legs buckled, and she slipped haplessly to the floor, her eyes still glued to the massive screen and her stomach churning bile violently enough for her to taste it.

Ron was only halfway to the base when he fell, so when he hit, it was bad. His body landed terribly and bounced and rolled down the rise at the bottom of the cliff, leaving him thirty peors from the designated finish.

Cache sat where she was, tears flooding across her downy cheeks in torrents and her entire body frozen in utter panic, while inside she screamed to the Guardian to somehow spare that indomitable man she so desperately loved.

Ron lay motionless for what the viewers all felt was a lifetime, but was in fact only about thirty litas. Then his eyes popped opened and he spotted the med-station. (It automatically moved forward to the closest proximity it could when the grave injury was detected.)

He locked onto that image and set off again, dragging his battered body across the ground, breathing in shallow huffs because his abdomen felt like it was on fire.

There was no one there to come to his aid; no supporting teammates or roaring fans to motivate him. He was completely alone.

"You have to move!" Ron ordered himself, ignoring waves of pain that would have sent most men into instant shock. Growling sounds began to reverberate from his broad, bloodied chest. "Move your dragen ass!"

Ron Allison struggled feebly to prop himself up on one arm. He looked out at the world through a kaleidoscope of miss-matched colors and blurred vision, his eyes unable to draw any clear picture for his brain to comprehend. The swelling of that organ was pressing firmly against the inside of his skull by then and the resulting pain was nearly too much to maintain consciousness. He strained against his need to vomit also, knowing all too well the agony that would result if his stomach contracted like that with eight broken ribs.

The blood running in his eyes burned intensely, but that was the least of the horrific inputs he was feeling. His left leg was broken in three places, his right kneecap was shattered, and that ankle was four times normal size. He pulled himself forward as best he could with his left arm, his right showing five inches of bone from his fibula, and he briefly wondered if he could possibly reach the help he needed before passing out.

Across the hot dirt of the sloping ground, Ron heaved his body like an inchworm...his goal a mere forty feet away but looking like ten miles. He left behind a thick trail of blood from numerous cuts and five deep gashes across his chest that threatened to drain his life fluid completely from him before he could reach the med-station.

On he went though, resolved to continue to the end...no matter which end came first.

After what seemed an eternity of agonizing torture, he succeeded in reaching the medical unit and slithered into it.

The moment he was clear of the door, the station jumped to life and secured him while scans began from a dozen points. The next thing Ron felt was the world listing and spinning as the automated engines burst to life and the station lifted off. His injuries were far too serious for the automated unit to handle, so it was heading for the orbiting hospital ship...the _Belsarius_...far above the planet.

"Aanlis, are you seeing this?" Cache asked her colleague on Rauld.

The moment Ron began his desperate race for the med-station, a surge of adrenaline had surged through her like a grenade had gone off inside her body, and she'd flown from her seat and out the southern exit of the coliseum in a flash. She'd contacted the _Darlile_ the moment she was clear, and now her voice was trembling badly as even more tears drained down her beautiful face. This time though, they were tears of relief. The moment she saw him move, she became absolutely confident he would not perish on that rock...but time was critical, and it was steadily ticking away.

"Yes, Cache. We are fully aware...and ready."

"Good. I am initiating the 'Allison Treage Protocol'."

"Understood."

Aboard the _Confarii_ ;

"I want the _Belsarius_ put under military lockdown...NOW!" screamed the Triad Council's spokesman. "When the Games are over, I want that dragen traitor delivered straight to me! Understood?"

"Yes, Praetor!" Maice replied, saluting his superior rigidly.

He then relayed those orders to the fleet that orbited the planet, causing an instantaneous response of military might.

Arsisi would have thought all was lost for her hero if it hadn't been for a certain mysterious acquaintance she'd fostered a relationship with over the com. As it was though, her faith in that colleague remained wafer thin under the circumstances. But with absolutely no way to intervene on her own, she could only to wait and see if it all worked out.

It took less than fifteen borts travel time before the med-shuttle was coasting into the docking port of its destination, but by then Ron's blood covered the floor of the little station.

Ron faded out for a short while, until a team of medical machines and people (if you could really call them that) suddenly rushed in and hauled him from the medevac ship.

He then realized he was no longer on the planet he'd nearly died on simply because he could no longer feel the pull of Qaktoo. There were several strange voices surrounding him, saying...or more precisely 'reading'...information to one another about his injuries, but his vision was tripled so badly he had no chance of identifying anyone. However, the general information tossed about, the brightness of the ultra-white confines, and the smell of the place confirmed that he'd been transported to a Torian hospital ship fifty-thousand hoz above its surface.

Those med-techs were highly trained and exceedingly skilled at repairing every possible type of injury...especially from the most common bipedal-humanoid species. Their skills were honed from over a hundred cycles of supporting the Triad Games, as well as countless war zones they sustained across the Kreete Empire.

Ron was completely stripped by then and they already had full-spectrum holographic scans of his entire body hovering above his gurney as they floated him down the corridors to a waiting operating room.

As soon as they reached Reconstruction Room 458, they began investigating his most grievous injuries. They cleaned and closed his more horrible wounds, then reformed his ribcage with a lightweight shield that adhered to his skin and kept the ruined slivers in relatively proper position to both let him breathe, and let him heal.

His legs and arm had already been thoroughly scrubbed and reset by the med-unit during the flight, and placed inside three electronic bone regenerators that immediately began stimulating the appropriate cells to mend those fractures.

The techs on the ship quickly confirmed those stimulators were functioning properly and then also locked his ankle inside a separate device that would constantly chill the strained tendons and ligaments while it drained excess fluid from the swollen tissue and forced highly enriched oxygenated blood through the damage area.

His brain was the focus of most concern for the team however and half of their entire effort was given to that. The scans showed massive bleeding inside his skull, and so they brought in a fantastic device that could be remotely run. It was a helmet-shaped multi-tool that could monitor all outputs, inject whatever medicines they needed, and even go in and relieve the pooling areas of liquid.

However, that device never got deployed. Just as they moved in to begin, an alarm suddenly went off over the ship's com system.

"Alert! Alert! Biological contagion! Alert! Alert! Biological contagion! Evacuate Reconstruction Room 458 immediately! All medical personnel report to the nearest decontamination station for category seven decon procedures!"

The doctors and technicians suddenly pulled back from Ron's body as if he were radioactive, and then bolted from the room. A level seven decon was only administered for the most deadly pathogens, and every person there instantly feared a horrible, ghastly death at the whims of some insidious viral outbreak.

Ron was left alone in the large room for barely a lita though, for at the moment the doors closed behind the retreating team, a different set of doctors and technicians strolled calmly into the room through another access. They were all tall and slim, with golden hair and a placid, serene appearance...as if this type of occurrence was completely routine and well-rehearsed.

One of the techs guided a floating machine into the room that was almost as large as the gurney Ron had been strapped to, but it was a transport of a different sort.

"Aanlis?" the leader of the team said softly.

"Yes, Fortell?"

"We are ready to come home."

"Initiation of the Starflex in four, three, two, one...locked!"

Without a lita's hesitation, the team of doctors pushed Ron Allison's surgical platform across the threshold of the portal and into the most advanced medical facility in the known galaxy...and immediately got to work.

Aboard a different ship, far from the floating hospital, a gorgeous woman with bright blonde hair spent that same time shedding more tears for that fantastic man...tears of hope, of remorse, and of love. She collapsed back in her seat when Aanlis relayed Fortell's assessment; reporting Ron alive but in grave shape, and wondered how he could possible survive, much less carry on after such a brutal finish.

Over the past santari, she'd tried to come up with some angle to use against his continuing on...one that she thought might actually convince him of the futility of his mission...but had thrown each aside knowing he would never accept them. He had given his word and would stand by his teammates to the end, no matter the cost. She knew that.

Now however, he was grievously injured, with the future totally up in the air, and she was terrified of what was to come. He'd just nearly died a tragic, appalling death, barely escaping the reaper's cold grasp, and she feared his ability to endure another such trial. And this was only the sixth stage of the Games...the most deadly event was yet to come!

Nevertheless, Cache Kuar was a pragmatic realist, and so she wallowed in despair for only a short time before getting back to her own mission. She could do nothing for Ron's current condition, his life now in the finest medical hands in the known galaxy, but that didn't keep her from pouring over her growing plans for his future.

Setting her dainty jaw firmly, Cache shoved forward on the throttles of her beloved warbird and raced away.

By the time Ron was out of danger, Draake and Fraidze were back in the _Vastoria_ , prepping for takeoff. They had heard no news of Ron's prognosis, and the only thing that was released across the airwaves was that he was "Critical".

"Do you think Ron will be alright?" Fraidze asked Draake, as he opened his cryo-chamber.

"I think he will live," Draake replied solemnly.

"What are we going to do now...you know...without him?"

Draake paused for a few moments, his mind considering what lay ahead.

"That little man dragged his broken and bloody body thirty peors across bare rock to put us in first place. (Even with the horrendous finish, Ron's time was still five litas faster than the Kreete that had faced him) Now we will just have to find a way to beat the odds on our own."

The look on Fraidze's face was one of unqualified bewilderment though. At almost every stage, it had been Ron who'd somehow managed to outwit or outperform their opponents. But now that they knew where they were headed, it seemed like a hopeless cause without him.

Fraidze nodded his agreement however and climbed into the chamber. Draake closed and locked the cryo's seal then, and watched as Fraidze fell unconscious and the space filled with inertia gel.

"It will take a dragen miracle, I'm afraid," the giant Benoi spoke to the metal and glass pod beneath his gargantuan hand.

The chrono showed ten dactrais, twelve billots, and sixty seven borts until they would be fighting for their lives once again. Such was the schedule of the ninety-second edition of the Games of the Kreete Triad.

### Chapter Forty-nine

### Welcome to Kreete

For the first time in the history of the Triad Games, the final event was rescheduled. It had nothing to do with Ron's brutal injuries, but a change like that meant it would be impossible for him to heal in time to board a ship and make it to the event.

"Due to an unexpected outbreak of Fishtaris Plague on the planet Alarious," the official announcement said, "the planning committee overseeing the Triad Games has been forced to seek a new venue.

"However, since this has never happened in the past six-hundred-and-forty-four cycles, and thusly was not anticipated, the Lords were compelled to use a facility that could quickly be evacuated and quarantined from any outside influence...thus ensuring impartiality for each participant.

"Therefore, it is my great honor to announce to all the viewers and fans across our mighty Empire, that the final event will now take place on the Lords' homeworld...Kreete!"

The shock was felt across the galaxy in the form of utter silence. No outsider had ever even seen a glimpse of the Kreete world. Many reeled at the announcement.

Cache Kuar, however, was not surprised by their move...having been forewarned of such a ploy...she was determined!

The announcement was made on the final day of competition on Qaktoo, so that the teams could all reprogram their navigational computers. When the last transport had left the surface, there was not a soul among them that thought they would ever see their families or their homes again

Ten dactrais later, Ron Allison awoke.

He opened his eyes with a fluttering action, they having been closed for so long that it was almost a chore to get them to operate again. His mind was still sluggish and groggy, but he fought through the fog to look about. The light in the space around him was set to a level just bright enough to see shapes, so that he wouldn't bang into anything if he moved around. That allowed him a quick inspection of his immediate surroundings.

He was in a familiar room, lying on a soft bed, and the subtle hum of a power-plant could be heard in the dead-quiet space. He was aboard a ship.

He tried to sit up, but received multiple...and harsh...inputs to do otherwise. His head pounded at the slightest movement, his shoulders felt as if they'd been ripped off and then glued haphazardly back on, and his legs seemed too stiff to even bend...sending sharp jabs of pain racing up to his overloaded skull.

He laid his head back down for a few litas, until that wave of retaliation had passed, but then reached out from under the blanket and triggered the release mechanism for the straps holding him from floating around the room.

"Lights...half," he choked out, finding it almost impossible to speak.

When the lights' glow brightened, he gave himself the once over, and then understood the reasons his entire body ached so profoundly.

Ron could clearly see the scars across his naked body that marked every brutality he'd survived just a week and a half in the past. That's when he caught the smallest whiff of kiwi still lingering in his sinuses.

"Flarinca tank!" his mind told him. "Cache!"

He knew that somehow, that little woman had taken care of him once again, and his thoughts of her warmed his heart. He took a few moments to enjoy that feeling, but then it was back to work.

From there, Ron used the zero-G environment to float his way to the sanitizer for a long, hot shower. That helped loosen him up and invigorated him a tremendous amount. His movements were still jerky and stiff, but he worked through it until he was clean shaven and dressed.

Once his gravity suit was back on, restoring his sense of up and down, Ron began a billot's worth of stretches and limbering exercises that returned control of his limbs to his brain.

Afterward, his stomach led the charge to the next order of business. At that point, Ron headed for the mess.

Draake and Fraidze were there already, sitting quietly across from one another and having their breakfast. Neither was in a mood to converse, especially considering where they were and where they were headed, so the only sounds Ron heard as he approached were utensils sliding on plates.

Ron glided in as quietly as a cat, and so he was halfway across the room before Fraidze caught the movement.

"Pfffffffffffffffffffttttttt!" sounded suddenly, breaking the silence so profoundly that Draake lurched backward hard. It was the sound of Fraidze's mouthful of food spewing out his lips when his mind corroborated what he thought he was seeing.

He choked badly for a few litas, before he recovered enough to point at the man walking toward them with a grin now plastered across his face. "Ro-R-Ron!"

Draake scowled heavily at him before turning in the direction Fraidze was pointing. Then he too appeared to have difficulty swallowing his meal.

"By the grace of the Guardian!" he grumbled in amazement.

"Holy dragen monkey sart!" Fraidze finally said...his eyes scanning Ron up and down continuously.

"Fellas," Ron replied casually, nodding to each of them before he took a seat at the table.

He winced sharply when he sat, but it was a minor annoyance he shrugged off.

The holo-waitress asked for his order and Ron said, "The usual."

Fraidze was sitting again by then and so excited he could barely let Ron order before diving in with questions.

"How the sart are you alive? Where have you been? And how in the name of the Creator did you get here?"

Ron grinned at his friend and then answered. "Luck...I have no idea...and I can only imagine a guess."

Draake and Fraidze both looked quizzically at their teammate.

Ron shook his head and laughed.

"I really don't know how I'm still alive," he said. The food began arriving at that moment though and so he began eating...talking between gulps. "I remember a little about being on the hospital ship...and something was going wrong...a warning of some kind. Then I woke up here...in my room."

The others just shook their heads.

"Where exactly is 'here', by the way?"

"We're docked at a space station in geo-lock with the planet below," Draake replied. "We were instructed to wait until summoned...for transport down to the surface."

"The final event?" Ron clarified.

"Yeah," Fraidze said.

Ron took a big bite of food and grunted out, "What planet?"

Fraidze and Draake both shared a long glance.

"What?" Ron asked, still chomping away.

"Kreete," Draake replied.

"Pfffffffffffffffffffttttttt!" went Ron's breakfast.

Two billots later:

On a remote island, fifty hoz in diameter, the last teams still moving forward in the Games landed aboard two Kreete shuttles. There were only fourteen, with a total of thirty-two individual competitors.

Only one team member from each squad was required to participate, but most sent two...if they still had two. No team wanted to leave their representative all alone during such a hostile ordeal if they could avoid it.

The Kreete group was down to five by then, but they all wanted their slice of the glory pie that awaited them, so they stood together.

Draake and Ron stepped off the ship and surveyed the scene. Fraidze was not with them.

Aboard the _Confarii_ ;

Maice Lorr was sipping on his favorite morning beverage, just having had a wonderful breakfast. He was going over the last minute details of the opening ceremony, making sure the Kreete hierarchy would be satisfied with its presentation, when he detected a commotion at some of the other stations.

When he glanced up, his drink went splashing to the floor of his command center as he leaped to his feet and stared at the impossible.

"How the dragen sart did 'he' get there?" Maice asked in complete disbelief, staring at Itsu of Caron on the viewer and speaking out loud to no one.

Arsisi merely absorbed the image with her mouth hanging open and a heat-wave racing through her entire body.

A few litas passed before Maice could regain his composure. At that point, his hand slammed down on the control console to his right.

"Milarcin!" he bellowed across the com. "Get me the commander of the _Belsarius_!"

On the planet Kreete;

It had taken a long, stressful sales pitch to keep Fraidze from joining them, but he'd conceded at the last when Ron had finally taken him aside and told him; "My dear friend, I didn't want to have to tell you so bluntly...but the pure truth of it is like this. You are an excellent fighter, a marvelous athlete, a courageous warrior, and a true friend...but you are not a woodsman. And since we all know the final event will be one of pure survival in a jungle situation, you would put yourself and the team in unnecessary danger if you are with us."

"How so?" Fraidze had countered heatedly, feeling his pride taking a harsh beating.

"You are clumsy in heavy brush, much slower than us, and cannot cover your trail with any real effectiveness."

"You're telling me that Draake is better suited to that kind of task than me? He moves through a forest like a dragen frightened bull gressll (elephant on Fraidze's planet)!

"Actually no, I'm not. In fact, I would go alone if Draake would allow it, but he will not relent. However, in his defense, he can stand against almost any creature they can throw at us, he can leap ten peors high in their lighter gravity, and he is faster than either of us in a sprint!

"Now please, do not take offense, Fraidze, or feel like you have let us down, my friend. You have done your part and more to get us this far...and that is an absolute fact. Do this for me. Stay out of this final challenge and live...I beg you."

Fraidze had given up at that. Ron's reasoning...and his heartfelt plea...could not be denied.

The shuttles took to the air then and left the teams standing in an open glade near the center of the island. Upon that grassy expanse stood the only manmade structure on the entire landmass. It was a domed building one hundred peors high and at least a half hoz in diameter, and it was perfectly smooth.

From a height of about twenty peors to the apex, the dome was transparent...to allow the sunlight inside no doubt...but there was no sign of underlying support structure at all. It looked like a gigantic drop of water, so clear was the material. If it weren't for the situation they were all in, Ron would have marveled at the thing for billots. As it was though, they were in less than friendly surroundings, so he kept his senses on alert.

Along with Ron and Draake, all the participants watched one another nervously and wondered what was to come, except for the Lords' team. Ron noted a distinguishable lighthearted mood in the mannerisms of the Kreete squad. Even though they too had already lost two members of their original team, they seemed more than optimistic about the coming event...like they already knew it was in the bag.

Ron ground his teeth together to stop any chiding remarks that might come to mind, but couldn't suppress a snort at their demeanor.

"What's up?" Draake asked softly, picking up on Ron's building anger.

"Those sorry, chinch-eating-flarges!" he hissed. "They sure look like this whole dragen stage is a forgone conclusion."

"They always think that."

"No, it's not just their normal superiority complex...not this time. Something's going on. This feels like a complete setup."

"No kidding? You're just now realizing that? Look around you, Ronin! We're on their home planet...at a place they control totally. If they want, we could all just disappear and no one would ever even have the chance to investigate."

Ron had thought of that when he found out where they were headed, but he still felt there was more to it. "I don't know, Draake. It's a no-brainer that the Kreete want us all dead...that's for certain. But they will also want it to be very public...just to show the rest of the Triad that there might and supremacy is beyond anyone's grasp...that they are omnipotent."

Draake stood by but said nothing more. After all, both sides of the discussion were completely valid.

At the sound of a loud gong, a set of double doors six peors high swung outward, beckoning the contestants to enter the large coliseum. The teams then all followed the Kreete's representatives into the immense domed structure.

High above, in the communications ship;

"This is Bireen Jonns, Captain of the Belsarius."

He was an Eleysian...not a Kreete commander.

"You acquired an emergency evac patient ten dactrais ago, at the very end of the sixth stage of the Games," Maice explained.

"Yes," Jonns admitted hesitantly. "I recall the incident."

"I want to know how he escaped your dragen ship!" Maice hissed. "Explain yourself!"

"Well, the man was placed in one of our surgical rooms with numerous injuries. We began systematically repairing him as usual, but then a quarantine hazard alert sounded and we evacuated the room. When we realized it was a false alarm, our team returned and found the man gone. That is all I know."

"Gone?" Maice growled. "Gone where?"

"We have no idea. When the alert sounded, the video feed for the room failed. It was out no more than twenty-five litas, but when it returned, the room was empty."

Maice Lorr just stared at the captain with open contempt. Then he toggled the link to "off" without another word.

On Kreete;

The entire inside of the massive dome was a grand display of the power of the Triad. Everywhere one turned, a statue or engraving was there to exemplify some great achievement that one of their soldiers had performed. Every solar system they'd conquered was depicted along with the figure of their champion who'd received the credit for the campaign.

Every winning team who'd represented the Kreete in the Triad games was there as well, and the current team couldn't help but glance at those reliefs carved into the outer wall. They wanted very badly to see their own images displayed as such at the end of the current tournament...but you had to survive the competition to be granted that honor, and so far a pair of their teammates had already met their demise...and it wasn't over yet.

For just a split lita, Ron caught them all glancing his way, and that settled in his mind like a ten-ton press stamping it on his brain. The Destroyers had a single goal in mind. The others were of no concern, but he and Draake would have to die!

That confirmation wasn't really a revelation though, so he didn't let it bother him too much. In fact, he managed to eke out a sly smile at them, just to let them know that the challenge had been accepted. Draake just stood there at his shoulder, unruffled and seemingly oblivious to the whole exchange, but Ron knew from past experience with that giant that he missed very little. He just hid it better than most.

When they were all gathered inside, an image flashed into view in the direct center of the domed structure. It was the captain of the winning team from the last Triad Games...the Kreete's team commander, Peerc Goff.

The roar of a crowd slammed into the arena just then, and it vibrated the very ground beneath them, sounding like a million frantic fans all cheering as one.

Peerc's likeness along the wall was lit up while his holo-image was generated, and it didn't look to be the same person until Ron noted that at the finals of the last Games, Peerc was still a Master Killer. The individual that stood before them now was of the Reaper Class. The normal bone ridge on his skull had been joined by two more, creating a skull that was, for all intents and purposes, impenetrable. His size had grown by fifteen percent, his weight by twenty, and his hands now displayed the true characteristic of the class...five fingers with two opposing thumbs. The strength of those creatures was nearly unbelievable.

The image would have looked artificially enhanced to any human standing as close as they all were, but Ron knew that such tricks were not necessary. The nine and a half foot tall mass of muscle and bone before them was a factual rendering of the fellow.

In fact, if Ron had never met Draake Tarbold and his kind, he would still consider the Kreete Reaper as the most powerful biped being in the galaxy.

Peerc allowed the rumble of the crowd to continue for a while, relishing his moment in the spotlight. This would be the last time he would have the privilege of representing his race to the hundreds of billions of their subjects who were watching.

The deafening thunder of applause and cheers was so filled with awe and elation that it sounded artificial...at least to all the subjects under the Kreete's rule.

"I am Peerc Goff...Champion of the Triad Games!" he finally growled in the Lords' guttural language. "I will read off the rules for those competing, and for all those watching across the mighty Kreete Empire.

"First; This island is totally isolated from the outside world. There are no medical units, no rescue squads, no help of any kind. After this holo-com device terminates, there will be no electronic contact for any reason other than the broadcast buttons you will attach now."

They all stepped forward to a long table that had dozens of tiny silver buttons laid out across its surface.

"The lens is facing up. Press the other side to the center of your foreheads. The adhesive will bond with your skin and cannot be taken off until a special releasing agent is sprayed on it."

They all did as instructed, and a moment later Peerc looked to his left and nodded.

"All the units are operating. Good. Now the audience will be able to see whatever you see and hear what you hear."

"That's just great!" Draake mumbled to Ron. "Those dragen..." Ron shot him a quick, yet extremely stern glare that made him pause to think. "Oh yeah...uh...others will know everything we say."

"If you are wondering if anyone can hack into the feed and get an advantage, let me assure you that the honor code of the Kreete will not allow such misuse."

Ron let out a low growl of dissent. Most contestants held their contempt better than that however, fearing more scrutiny than they wanted.

"The center of the arena you stand in has been the sight of some fantastic bouts in the past, but this is not where the Triad Games final contest will be held. No this event will not be just about who is the strongest or the best fighter. This last test will demand from all of you much more than just brawn and barbarism. You will have to show cunning, resourcefulness, and even ferocity beyond what you have needed thus far. There will be no food provided for you. You will have to survive off what you can catch or pick. However, be warned that the land outside this domed hall has been populated with some of the most dangerous creatures from across the Empire! At least one beast hails from each of the worlds represented here today. Some are poisonous. Some are very fast. Some have camouflage of an impressive scale. Some are completely unstoppable.

"Too, you will be given no tools, weapons, or survival supplies of any sort."

The men standing in attendance audibly gasped.

"Fear not. Those items are available to the contestants who can find them, scattered wide across the grounds, and anything may be acquired from another person by whatever means are necessary. Be wary though, as the most enticing items can only be gathered by genuine bravery and guile!"

"That's just great," Ron thought. "An Easter-egg-hunt to the death."

"Now, to win this event, you must return to this very spot at the sun's zenith on the seventh day, and lift the coveted scepter."

He pointed to a tall staff that had a blood-red skull attached to the top.

"To do that though will take another measure of luck. There are forty-nine doors along the perimeter of this structure that will allow entry, but only one of them will open at a time. It will illuminate with a red border when it is active...and that will alternate every seven litas!"

The men all shook their heads with exasperation. Was there no end to this nightmare?

"As for the beginning however, there will be a cannon shot fired in one bort. When that sounds, you will have seven borts of safety. You are not allowed to interfere with any other team, and no creatures will be set free to attack you. You can either spend that time searching for ways to survive, or putting distance between you and the others.

"Are you ready?"

Everyone but the Kreete looked slowly around at their opponents still left in the tournament. No one spoke. As the litas ticked away, the silence grew to a palpable state.

Ron watched the Kreete team closely. They stood completely calm until the time drew close, and then they lowered their shoulders a bit, as if readying for a dash.

When the tone sounded, the lights went off and the participants were left in utter darkness.

### Chapter Fifty

### Survival

"Shit!" Ron hissed. "Don't move!" he then ordered to Draake.

There was much jostling and angry sounds as many of the others hurriedly turned to retrace their steps to the entry door they'd all used. Ron though had scanned and memorized much of the nearby structure and targeted an exit that he felt would be free of traffic.

"Grab my arm and follow me!" he ordered to Draake who stood at his immediate left.

They hadn't made it five steps before a door ahead and to the right of them opened and the entire Kreete team raced through it, out into the bright sunlight.

"They knew exactly what was going to happen," Draake growled as the door shut quickly and all was pitch black again.

It took some of their precious time to find their way out, but less than half a bort later Ron leaned against one of the exits and they both recoiled at the blinding brilliance of the sunlit world.

Ron's auto-shades flooded into his eyes instantly, and brought the landscape into clarity once more, while Draake fought the glare as his adjusted more slowly.

"Draake," Ron finally said, having found the Kreete's trail away from the dome. "I think we should go the opposite direction of the Kreete."

"Agreed!" the giant replied; his own eyes finally usable again. "You can be sure that they will already have weapons in their hands by the time the safety-period is over."

"They went through there," Ron said, pointing to the trail they'd left. "The other teams should be filing out back that way. We should follow the curve of the building this way."

"You lead, Ronin. I will follow for now."

Ron nodded, knowing the Benoi captain hadn't fully relinquished his status as the team leader even though Ron felt he should have.

That type of setting was tailored for Ron. If he were alone, he felt certain he'd be back to challenge for the win. As it was though, he was vividly aware that providing food and protection to them both would be extremely dicey. His instincts and the nearly instantaneous reaction to his senses could not be disseminated to another.

The clock in Ron's mind counted down as they sprinted along the wall of the dome until they were one hundred and eighty degrees away from the Kreete. At that point he broke away from the Triad's museum building and bolted for the wooded fringe of the forest.

He'd taken into account that the coliseum was ringed entirely by the wide grassy lawn, and wondered just what would be guarding that open patch of ground on the return trip.

The "safe" time elapsed just after they crested a ridge due north of the museum, but they kept up a hard pace for another ten borts along an open path that seemed like it had been cleared very recently.

Draake mimicked Ron as he slowed to a walk and began taking in the area with increased vigilance. His eyes swept back and forth, and so the giant copied that as well, still striding directly away from the dome.

After a billot of walking without uttering a sound, Ron finally called a halt to the trek.

"Okay," he began in a low voice. "We need to come up with a plan to find water and food. The caches of supplies will no doubt come along as we search, or they won't, but we can't really anticipate where to look for those, so I suggest the essentials first."

Draake nodded his agreement, fully aware that Ron was correct, and seasoned enough by then that he didn't need to speak it out.

Ron had been eyeing the nearby trees and decided it was time to make use of his partner's incomparable strength.

"We need weapons," he announced, turning to Draake.

The captain was at a loss because other than the rocks in the area, he saw nothing to use for a weapon, or even a tool to make a weapon. Ron though, having spent years of his life either getting by without something, or making it himself, saw a boon of supplies.

"Can you take that tree down?" Ron asked, pointing to the one in question.

It was very straight, approximately four inches in diameter at the base, twenty feet tall, and had spindly branches. Draake ripped it out of the ground rather easily.

"Now what?" the giant inquired, his interest beginning to peak.

The ground was littered with hard, quartz stone pressing up through the soft ground along a small rise off to the north, so Ron headed for that spot. Draake followed with the tree.

It took only a few moments for Ron to find a stone of proper size, and then he set about breaking it against a larger boulder. The rock sheared off with a very clean, sharp edge. He quickly dragged that back and forth down the length of the tree. It peeled the bark off very nicely.

"Okay," he said when he'd found success. "You need to find another rock like this, but much bigger...one that you can break into an axe...understand?"

Draake nodded, suddenly grasping Ron's instruction.

In less than half a billot, they had that tree stripped and shortened to a staff Ron could handle. The wood's grain was tight enough to hold a good point too, which Ron manufactured against the rough face of another large boulder. When that one was complete, they copied their techniques on another, larger tree that ended up being an enormous spear for Draake. Afterward, Ron felt much better about their chances, and he had Draake stand guard while he scrounged for more materials.

Shortly thereafter, he found some tough, stringy vines climbing the trees and split them into long, supple strands that he wove into a short length of rope, all the while keeping his inner radar sweeping the forest. With a bit of difficulty, Ron then hacked off a small bit of his uniform and tied the rope to either side of it. Then he hunted the ground for stones the right size and filled his pockets with them.

"What is that contraption?" Draake asked.

As an answer, Ron demonstrated.

"See that tree over there?"

Draake nodded.

He placed a stone in the fabric pouch, whirled the assembly about his head for a few litas, and then shot his hand forward in a quick snap. The projectile slammed into the tree almost dead center and gouged a nice-sized piece of bark out of the trunk.

Draake stared at it for a moment, and then turned to Ron with a large, ghastly grin across his hideous face. "Excellent!"

Ron smiled back at him and stowed the sling-shot in his pocket with the end hanging out so he could get to it in a hurry.

"Now," Ron then said, "I think if we continue westward, we should come across some form of stream eventually. If not, the winds prevail from the east on this land and should drop more rain on the western side of the island, so maybe we can find a pool or two of fresh water."

Draake stared at the smaller man in wonder. Ron was an enigma he just couldn't fully grasp. How anyone could be so at home in the wilds of an unknown land was simply baffling to him, but he had no misgivings about following him either. Those qualms had died away long ago.

Ron had already catalogued half-a-dozen different sets of tracks from beasts of large enough size to present a danger to humans but he could not definitively identify any of them so far. Two appeared to be the padded feet of some felines, two showed signs of claws like that of a canine, and two were so foreign that he could only imagine something in between. He sniffed each one carefully while Draake kept watch, trying to at least make a mental file of the variances.

The trees were not large in the area and therefore Ron doubted they could elude any of the predators by that fashion, so as they moved, his senses were wired tight.

It was a good thing they were too...twenty borts later...when one of the "unidentified" creatures became identified.

Ron and his teammate were picking their way through the thick underbrush as they headed toward the unmistakable sounds of water gurgling over rocks. It was well after midday and they were very thirsty, but Ron suspected that any predators would stake out the waterholes, so he stopped in his tracks when they were within view of the small stream. He sniffed at the air and listened intently, but the brook was downwind from his position and therefore his efforts returned no favorable information. He wanted to stay put for a while, just to observe the area, but Draake was never a very patient fellow.

"Do you detect anything, Ronin?"

Ron paused a long few moments, his eyes searching the forest for those minute clues only an animal could pick up on...but he found none. He wasn't, as of yet, familiar enough with those particular woods to identify a change in the normal calls, and even if he had, the disturbance could be blamed on his and Draake's passage. However, he also knew that if he were at the waterway, he certainly would have detected their approach. To an animal, his odor alone would be as clear as clapping his hands, and the Benoi's powerful scent would have alerted everything for half a hoz.

In the end though, Ron had to admit he had nothing to report, so he just shook his head.

"Good," Draake told him in a hushed growl, "I'm going for a drink."

He moved forward much faster than Ron would have, so Ron took up his flank, his eyes looking everywhere at once, but even that wasn't good enough.

Barely a dozen steps closer to the stream, the air was shattered by a piercing cry.

From their left charged a massive beast, three times Draake's size, and it was absolutely terrifying. It had shoulders like a hyena...huge, rounded, and powerful...and its chest was easily six feet across between them. Its long legs ended in huge feet which sported four toes with six-inch-long claws. Its body was long and built like a lion's, supple, agile, and rippling with hardened muscles. The creature's skull was larger than a fifty-five-gallon drum, and its jaws opened sideways displaying eight-inch-long canines with four-inch long serrated teeth along both sides of them. And its eyes were ovals standing on edge, were the size of saucers, and were blood red in color.

Draake wasn't a being that retreated from anything, so he whipped around and braced himself in a blink, his surprise turning immediately to anger at the threat. But even the enormous class-eleven planet dweller was no match for the juggernaut headed his way.

Draake tried to get his crude spear into position to stab at the beast, but it was too close and moving too fast. The best he could do was to brace his weapon in such a way that it took the brunt of the collision and spared his flesh. All the same, he went flying twenty feet into a tree, slamming him so hard that it rattled his senses.

The creature would have pressed its attack, and possibly killed the giant Benoi, if Ron hadn't leapt into the fray at that instant.

Ron watched in horror as Draake was so roughly handled, and when he saw his only teammate lifted from his feet into horizontal flight, he dashed in without considering the obvious danger.

In merely four steps, Ron was full tilt sprinting at the animal the size of an elephant, and as his feet left the ground in a savage, lunging attack, the call to battle of the Aredanz Mountain Folk ripped from his lips.

Ron slammed his entire weight and every ounce of his rolling shoulders' strength into a stabbing thrust at the beast's side, just behind its front shoulder, but his crude wooden spear had no chance to penetrate the thick, armored hide of the alien monster. In fact, he bounced off it immediately, falling flat on his back in the underbrush.

The creature did turn its head about to see exactly what had just struck it, but showed little concern other than a quick slap with its front paws. Ron somehow was able to keep his wooden spear between him and those terrible claws, but he was tossed five peors behind the animal in that deft move and fell hard in a tumbling maneuver.

Rattled, scuffed, and furious, Ron popped to his feet in an instant, staring back at the huge creature that had just swatted him aside like a gnat. His chest heaved as he scanned the beast for any type of weakness, ready to reengage the fight even as blood drained down the side of his face from a nasty gash on his forehead.

The huge animal then returned its attention to Draake, who was on his feet again at least, shaking the fog from his mind. Ron saw him crouching behind the tree he'd struck...readying himself for a battle to the death.

The animal crouched as well, poising itself like a cat trying to catch a mouse.

Its right paw struck out in a lightning-quick swipe that Draake managed to avoid only due to his ultra-heavy-worlder reflexes and luck. Its claws did connect with one thing...the tree that had stopped Draake's flying body...and those four tools of carnage ripped through half the tree's cross section as if it were balsa wood.

Draake had his staff/spear in his huge fingers and so he put it to use immediately, still keeping the tree between himself and the beast. The creature lunged at him with its teeth snapping barely six inches from the Ultra's shoulder, but Draake retaliated with a solid blow from his staff that caught the animal right on the side of its jaws. It sounded like a dump truck ramming an oak tree.

The creature pulled back and roared again, ripping two more sections of the tree's trunk out in its lashing fury, and then dove to the right, trying to get around that single obstacle and at its tormentor.

Draake had faced a thousand bouts to the death though, and danced his way clear once more by a hair's breadth. He had his weapon at the ready, but he would need the perfect target before he'd strike, knowing full well that he would get only one chance.

During that exchange, Ron saw a way to possibly give him that opportunity. When the beast swiped at Draake, its tail snapped up and away to counteract its body's movement, and that was what he needed.

Ron snatched up his own spear and approached the beast from the rear. The creature had already disregarded him as a threat, so it paid no attention to his movement now. The very next time the beast lunged, Ron attacked the only spot of vulnerability he could find.

Just as before, he dashed forward and leaped, using his momentum to its utmost, and five feet of his six-foot-long wooden spear disappeared into the beast's anus.

The reaction was instantaneous...and violent!

The beast leaped forward as if hit by lightning, slamming into the tree hard enough to crack its eighteen-inch trunk and send broken limbs raining down on Draake. Then it spun about and rolled over a dozen times, destroying every bit of verdure within fifty peors. Ron retreated to the embankment of the stream the moment after he attacked, fully expecting such a reaction, and now watched as he could while avoiding projectiles of every size being flung about from the frenzied beast.

Draake was trapped where he was though, still frantically keeping the tree between him and the animal. He was too far from any other cover to make a run for it, and had no way to anticipate what the beast might do next.

The creature tried over and over to reach back and remove the wooden enema, but it was too buried to extricate. After at least five unbroken borts of thrashing mania, the incited animal finally tired out to the point that it paused to catch its breath, and that's when Draake made his move.

The beast stopped its motion facing in Ron's direction, totally forgetting the prey it had been seeking just before being so rudely violated. It opened its hideous jaws wide and howled up to the sky, obviously in extreme discomfort...but its backside was only a few steps from the mighty Benoi.

Draake took his experience from battling hundreds of creatures and put it to use. He lunged forward and struck Ron's still protruding staff with his own, diving back to his side of the tree as quickly as he could.

The animal whipped around incredibly quickly, completely insane with fury, and found the Benoi taunting it just a stride away. The beast lunged again, driving its shoulder into the tree with all its weight and tipping the thirty-peor-tall living monolith to a forty-five degree angle.

Draake Tarbold stood his ground. The creature could tell the hulking form of the giant captain was just within its reach with nowhere to run, and so it snapped its head forward one last time, certain that it finally had its victim...but...

Draake was confident of that exact reaction, so when those dripping, gaping fangs shot down at him, he used his own defensive weapon in a counter attack. With a snarling, roaring bellow that would rival a Kodiak bear's, Draake drove his twelve-foot spear down the throat of that vicious beast, all the way to the end!

The result was phenomenal. The beast shuddered hard as it recoiled and backpedaled stiffly, clawing madly at the spear, but it didn't get very far. It had sustained too much damage, and now Draake's spear was such an impediment that it couldn't even breathe. In less than a bort, the enormous, fearsome, magnificent creature from the faraway planet of Voshar was no more.

Ron strode forward when the beast went down and approached Draake quickly, hoping the giant had escaped in one piece. Draake's uniform was torn badly and his flesh was well-striped from a few passes of the beast's claws that had gotten a bit closer than he'd liked, but for the most part he was whole.

"Will you live?" Ron asked the huge Benoi.

"For the moment," Draake replied, his stoic demeanor restored even as his chest rose and fell in great heaving motions.

"Good. I think we had better work fast. We need to retrieve our weapons, fill our bellies with water, and then get the hell out of here. That fight could have been heard for two or three hoz...and now that it's over, you can bet that someone will be coming to take a look."

"Agreed," was Draake's only reply.

They hurriedly did as Ron had suggested, but when they were ready, Ron made a small amendment to his haste.

"Okay, Draake," he said while scanning the forest all about. The woods still appeared clear and calm. "One last thing. Can you eat raw meat?"

The giant looked at him hard, and then glanced at the carcass of the beast. "Without hesitation," he replied.

"Excellent. Now, we don't have anything to cut with, but if you can remove a couple of those claws, I'll bet they will."

Draake's strength was a fantastic boon just then. He tore out a pair of the creature's talons, and together, he and Ron sliced out a couple of nice steaks to carry with them. And just when they were about to leave, Draake thought of another item they could use. He went over to the creature's still gaping mouth and ripped out two of its longest fangs, handing one to Ron.

"For the tip of your spear," he said gruffly.

They were on their way again in less than twenty borts, having washed off the gore and lashed the fangs to their spears with some of the rope Ron had made earlier.

They took to the stream and followed it northward to mask their tracks, eating their spoils as they went.

To the Earth man side of Ron, that no doubt would have been a difficult thing to do, but to the mountain-man side from Caron, it was a delicacy not to be trifled with. Draake too was not squeamish about the meal. It was rich in nutrients and would sustain their strength well for at least another day.

By sundown of the first evening, they were ten hoz away from that battleground in some rolling hills, and when they found a small spring percolating up through the rocky ground, they decided to make that their camp.

Ron searched the surrounding area for a hundred peors, looking for any sign that they were not alone, but luckily found none.

Working by the light of the two moons overhead, he then set about gathering some of the plentiful vines in the area. The water spilling out of the spring allowed those tough brown creepers to grow very thick and he showed Draake how to weave them into a fairly strong rope. Their stomachs were full for the time being, but he knew that in the morning the pangs of hunger would begin to build again, and he wanted to be ready.

By midnight, they had three crude snares set about their camp in the hope of catching some small creature.

When they finally retired, they decided to do so under the overhang of a thin slab of rock, having learned their lesson about flying predators long ago. One stood guard while the other slept and they rotated out every three billots. All seemed quiet and serene.

On Ron's second turn however, he stood watching the woods and occasionally glancing up at the sky...at the myriad of stars twinkling in differing colors he could view. The planet Kreete was located in a section of the galaxy that had an extraordinary view of three separate star nebulae. One was emerald green, another was bright rose, and the third shown as yellow as a sunflower.

Suddenly, he locked his body as rigid as the stone he leaned against.

A muffled sound had reached his ears from off to his left and slightly behind him. That had sparked a nerve inside and made him turn, but what had stopped him so completely was the cold edge of a blade pressed lightly to his neck between two of his vertebrae, and a grip of iron locked on his throat. He'd been taken completely off guard for the first time in longer than he could remember, and that sent a sharp chill racing through him. Whoever had come for him was no novice.

"Do not move, Ronald Allison, of the planet Earth!" whispered a voice that was so low no one could have heard it other than Ron, not even the monitoring device on his forehead.

Ron had considered a desperate maneuver until he heard his name.

"This is a shakari blade, the sharpest cutting edge known, and the slightest pressure will sever your spine.

"My name is Isleff, from the Preatari Clan of the Hoondelli. I am an assassin, and I was sent to kill you."

### Chapter Fifty-one

### A Change of Plans

Ron felt the strength of the man's fingers on his throat and knew for certain that he had no hope of escaping. He remained absolutely still.

"I have decided against it," the soft voice breathed into his ear, "but do not move."

The cold touch of the knife lifted from his skin a moment later, and then very carefully, a device slid around the monitor on Ron's forehead until it clamped firmly to his skull.

"I have affixed a sound muffler to the com device," the voice said, slightly louder than before. "Those watching cannot hear us now, but do not turn around to look at me."

Many times over the past few cycles of Ron's life had he been face to face with the grim reaper, yet fate had stepped in to intercede when he surely should have perished. This apparently was one of those times. He maintained his watch as if nothing had happened, but his heart pounded in his chest loud enough for his new associate to hear it.

"Be warned; this place is a killing ground the Kreete are extremely familiar with. They train here. There are traps everywhere...and worse. Death owns the night on this island!"

"Why are you helping me?" Ron breathed in a low whisper.

"If you live, you will save my world."

"But I don't even..."

"It has been arranged as payment...but you must survive! You 'must' beat them!"

"I will do everything I can, but without weapons..."

"Your weapons and some supplies are waiting for you two hoz from here. I suggest you hurry to them before someone else happens upon them."

"What about my teammate? I can't just leave him!"

"He is already dead, so fear not."

Ron's head snapped around like a skeet catapult launching a clay pigeon. Draake lay stretched out exactly where he'd last seen him, and appeared to be asleep. Ron dashed over to him and found Draake's body as lifeless as the stone beneath him.

Ron's insides bunched into knots instantly, and his heart felt leaden.

"But how?" he queried, still maintaining his soft tone while his mind ran at light speed.

"It was a Benictian asp, the most venomous snake from the planet, Malaca, and its fangs are so fine, the victim rarely even knows he's been attacked. Draake stepped on one during his watch cycle. He crushed it, of course, but not before it bit him. The poison would not have killed him had he stayed upright. It only takes affect when the prey is calm and prone...when it can work its way slowly to the heart muscle. Once there, it paralyzes the autonomous electrical action within the muscle fibers."

Ron became angry at that, but he did not turn to face the shadowy figure. He was still staring down at his deceased partner and assessing his options.

"You seem very familiar with that particular creature," Ron said suspiciously. "It would make an excellent assassin's tool!"

"Yes...it would...and I have used such creatures on occasions in the past. In fact, I have been taught over ten thousand ways to kill more than two hundred different species."

Ron was truly amazed. Such devotion to anything was almost mythical...and yet to be that dedicated to the art of death was clearly maniacal. He found that divergence to be eerily fascinating.

"Why didn't you warn him?"

"I could not reveal myself to such a creature. He could not be reasoned with as I have done with you. I would have been forced to kill him...or die."

Ron stood up again and felt the heat inside him baking his skin. Draake was his only ally on that island of peril. He had survived cycles of unrelenting war, untold matches to the death in the Kreete sporting circuit, one previous stint in the Triad Games, and six of the seven events of this round. He seemed unstoppable...invincible. Such an end was unworthy of him.

"You could have told me soon enough to save him."

"It took me an entire billot to approach you the way I did. As you know, stealth like we are capable of takes extreme patience, and time."

Ron was taken aback that this master assassin would place him in such high regard. The fellow must be phenomenally gifted in his profession to have been ordered to this task, and to offer such praise seemed overly generous to someone not in the same vocation.

"Very well," Ron finally said...accepting what this mysterious stranger had told him as fact. "Which direction?"

"North-northeast. When you cross a wide field, look for a black metal pin sticking out of the ground near the far side. Head due north from that point for half a hoz. Search for your things inside the burned out shell of a giant Sumachi tree."

"Why didn't you just bring them to me?"

"I have been on this planet for three dactrais, becoming acclimated to it. I watched the Lords move all around placing different supplies here and there, but the items for you were not part of them. They were here even before I was. Someone with a tremendous amount of influence, extraordinary bravery, and/or complete insanity, beat them all to this place...and somehow, they knew almost exactly which way you would go. I decided that leaving them there would be the prudent thing to do."

Ron could think of only one person who could possibly have achieved all that, and he smiled.

"One last thing," Isleff whispered. "Nearly every other contestant here has been ordered to hunt you down and kill you, or have their families flayed to death."

Ron's gut twisted hard at that, but not quite enough to face Isleff. "But why?"

The assassin snorted softly. "Do you really not know?"

Ron remained silent.

"Your team is the very first to have ever even dreamed of winning! In case you haven't been keeping track, the Lords have used illegal tactics six different times to stop you. They even destroyed your first transport ship, hoping to end the threat of your mounting success with unquestionable finality. They cannot allow you to triumph over their 'superior race'."

Ron had long suspected such strategies of course, but now it was even more disheartening.

"One last thing," the assassin said. "Remove your uniform. When you walked into the arena, you were tagged with a mildly radioactive compound that the Kreete can track."

"Holy crap!" Ron thought. "They're really pulling out all the stops!"

"Now you must hurry. The sound suppressor will have been noticed by now, and no doubt they have sent something, or someone this way to 'check' on you."

Ron understood that "check" meant "kill", so he quickly stripped.

Isleff had moved away to where Ron had been standing guard earlier, and he was listening and searching the night intensely.

In mere moments, Ron had dropped his uniform over Draake's corpse and moved off in the direction Isleff had told him.

"Go as swiftly as you dare, Ron Allison, but remember...nearly every single living thing here is trying to end your life.

"May the Guardian guide your steps. You will not see me again."

Ron could sense the urgency in Isleff's voice. It was vibrating with anxiety. If this man had disobeyed his directive in order to save him, then Ron knew he'd just forfeited his life do get it done...and likely his entire family's lives as well, if he had one. Such determination and sacrifice was proof of just how desperate he was to help his planet...that is, if it wasn't all some well-conceived plan to leave him naked and unarmed on a hostile world.

After removing the audio muffler, Ron glided swiftly and silently through the night, carrying just his crude spear and using only the light from the stars to keep him oriented.

In half a billot, he came across a wide, open meadow that stretched too far for him to circumvent without losing the remainder of the night, so he peered around carefully at the edge. He saw no one within sight, not even a hoverbot, so he took off.

Ron was flat out by his third step, not caring that his manhood now swung freely in the early morning breeze and hyper-alert for the dangers he'd been warned about.

He raced across the level, shortly mown ground in such haste to reach the safety of the woods that he nearly missed the marker Isleff had referred to. Luckily though, his sharp eyes caught sight of something sticking up out of the ground like a small, forgotten surveyor's pin. It jutted up about a foot, was slim, oval in cross-section, and so utterly black that it gleamed not at all, and instead, looked like the total absence of light.

Ron was at the object almost instantly, his heart racing in anticipation. He wanted badly to believe what he was seeing, but it wasn't until he gripped that solid shaft of inky shadow that he could. With a powerful surge of his shoulders and back, the object slid from the ground and into his hands, causing his lips to part in a wide grin.

He wanted to stand there and marvel at the unbelievable fortune that it represented, but he knew he had to move. He was at full speed again momentarily, gripping the long black rod in his left hand and his spear left out in the grass, already forgotten.

He'd closed in on the woods when another object caught his eye, off to his right. It was one of the Obarlians...a race of large, muscular heavy-worlders who had done very well in the Games...currently holding seventh place. The fellow was standing thirty peors away and held a crossbow pointed right at Ron.

"Klieen...Yarsh...he's right there!" the fellow yelled.

Ron heard the soft report of the bowstring and dropped to the ground instantly, causing the bolt to whistle by.

He rolled once and was up again in a blink, racing toward the man who'd just tried to kill him. He knew he could reach the bowman before the man could reload, but then two of his teammates stepped out into the open similarly armed and let fly with their weapons.

Ron tried desperately to stop while bending back as far as he could to spoil their aim, and that worked on one of the missiles. However, the other had better accuracy.

Ron caught himself from falling flat with his left fist and swatted at the incoming arrow with his right hand. And it was only the pure instinct born of a thousand battles that had him already holding the black razor in that hand.

The ultra-fine edge of that super blade sheared the shaft of the arrow just behind the tip and kept it from burying itself deeply into his chest. As it was however, Ron felt a sharp burning in his right pectoral as the missile's point lodged itself into his thick muscle tissue.

Ron was up again in a flash, now really flying at those men, and met them a few litas later.

They were big, strong, powerful men, and each had managed to draw their swords before he reached them, but Ron cut them all down in less than a dozen moves.

When he stood above their dying figures, he sheathed his sword and dug out the arrow tip while scanning the open ground for more threats. He was on his way again in moments, and never gave the dead men another thought.

"So I guess I can assume everyone has been well armed by now," he mused as he ran, blood slowly leaking down his bare chest.

On the _Darlile_ :

Cache was beside herself at that point, so frantic to help Ron that her heart-rate was actually outpacing his.

"Come on, Ron," she urged. "You are so close!"

Aboard the Confarii:

"Where did he get dragen sword?" Goruthe growled at his staff over the intercom. "I have never seen it...and I approved every weapon on the island!"

Everyone looked at the person next to them, but no one replied.

Arsisi knelt behind her master, vibrating as fast as Cache and praying that her hero would claim his supplies before someone else found them...or him.

On the island;

Ron had slowed down drastically from his dash across the meadow and now was moving through the dense underbrush only as swiftly as he dared. His ears were searching the surrounding woods like a bat's, trying to pick up the slightest hint of danger or threat.

The night was very dark in the cover of the woods, and so he nearly fell into catastrophe when his thigh pressed gently against a firm strand of wire stretched across a game trail.

Just as when Isleff's hand had grabbed his throat though, Ron stopped as if quick frozen. He waited for a lita or so, and then ever so gently eased back the way he'd come.

The sun's glow was just then beginning to build in the east, but still very weak in the confines of the forest. Yet in the dimness of the shadows Ron traced the line of the trip-wire to where it disappeared around a tree, and then picked it up where it continued onward to a lump in the ground.

"Humph," he grunted softly, not knowing exactly what would happen if the trap sprung, but willing to assume it would be lethal.

From there, Ron began seeking a path around the trap. To the left was a thick tangle of thorny vegetation that went on quite a ways. To the right, the bushes were dense, but...

"Gggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr," sounded a deep, vibrating warning to Ron's rear.

Ron whipped around and dropped into a crouch in the blink of an eye. There before him, not more than ten peors away, was a Porlanian tiger. It was a quadruped, eight feet long, black as the night sky, with eyes that shown like green candles in the darkness.

"Shit!" his mind screamed at his foolishness.

The soft drift of air moving across his body told him that he was upwind from the tiger, which explained how it had tracked him so easily, and why he had not detected it.

The beast crept forward at Ron as smoothly as an approaching fogbank, and as quietly. Ron had his blade at the ready, but with almost no room to maneuver, he wondered at what he could really do. Suddenly, the decision was made for him as the huge cat blasted forward, shredding the quiet of the night with its ferocious cry and leaping at Ron's shadowy figure.

Ron did the only thing he could in that tiny fraction of a lita...he dove to the right, into the thick briars.

When the cat pounced, Ron's back was grazing the wire that had foiled his passage, so he could not have retreated any further. The likelihood that someone would choose the nasty thorns over the bushes was remote, so he guessed that whatever device was waiting for a victim would swing either straight up, or in the direction of those bushes on the other side.

His presumption proved correct.

When the tiger's front paws touched the wire, the ground exploded into motion. A platform leaped up and then swung over, swatting the massive feline to the side as if it were a housecat.

And that platform was covered with long spikes that literally nailed the cat against the tree that the trip wire had rounded.

Ron gritted his teeth against the onslaught of prickly thorns, trying not to struggle to get up too quickly in order to minimize the amount of intrusion to his flesh, and stared at the poor creature across the trail from him.

He knew of course that it would have been him perforated by that sadistic device if he'd have taken one more step forward only borts ago, and so now he accepted the meager pain and discomfort of his current predicament with a grateful attitude.

Very slowly, Ron extricated himself from those stabbing annoyances...especially the ones imbedded in his most sensitive areas...and got to his feet.

(Cache and Arsisi both cringed at the muffled twinges of pain he released as he did so.)

He then gave the tiger one last sorrowful look before returning to his quest. It was too bad the beast had to meet its end like that, but Ron was certainly glad that it wasn't him.

Forward once more, Ron set off. He knew he was close now and strained his eyes even more to locate the certain tree Isleff had spoken of...and he still really hoped it wasn't some elaborate charade.

A quarter of a billot later, Ron spotted the tree. He was sure of it because it was so enormous that a Giant Sequoia would have looked average next to it...and it had a deep gash at its base from a fire nearly a thousand cycles in the past.

He started to move toward it, but that little warning bell sounded in his head again, so he paused and crouched low.

From off to the west, he heard a loud snap, like when someone steps on a good-sized, dried branch on the ground. That was followed up immediately by another person scolding them.

"Watch where you're stepping, you idiot!"

"Screw you, Lainy! How the dragen sart am I supposed to see where I'm stepping? It's dark...you know?"

Ron listened to see if he could make out any more men, but it was just the pair. A few borts later, they were within his sight. They were Qesicans...short and stout and powerful men from Qesi, a class 10.1 world in the Viri Cluster. Looking at them made him wonder briefly how they could have survived the many challenges he had, but he dismissed his initial estimation of them straightaway. He openly admitted that people can become extremely creative when motivated to the proper degree.

While Ron watched and waited for the men to pass his location, a change in the weather suddenly altered that plan.

He hadn't felt the pressure dropping, which normally preceded a coming storm, but without warning a loud booming thunderclap rolled through the woods and made the Qesicans jump. Not even a bort later, the sound of rain came sweeping at them, and that forced a totally new problem.

"Quick," Lainy said to his partner, "Get in there!"

Ron's heart sank as he watched them dash into the very crevice he was headed for.

"Son of a..." Ron cursed as the drops began to pound down upon his naked body. "Geez, that's cold," he added a moment later.

He didn't want to venture too far from his goal, but he also wanted to get some relief from the chilling downpour, so his eyes scanned the area quickly.

While he was focused on that, the Qesicans lit a small fire in their newly found hideaway.

Ron's search turned out to be a waste of time though, because there was no cover anywhere in sight. And then he caught a snippet of the interlopers' next conversation that shifted his plan once more.

"Hey, Mannie," Lainy said, "would you look at this?"

Ron's discomfort from the rain vanished before his next heartbeat, and his focus shifted pointedly from aggravated with the weather to incensed at those men.

As stealthily as that tiger had stalked him, Ron glided through the brush, weaving his way along until he stood right outside the cleft in the tree.

The men were hidden from Ron's view by a turn in the fire-ravaged pseudo-cave, so he continued approaching. He'd thought the hollowed-out section was of good size, but was surprised that he could actually walk upright inside it, and since they had posted no guard...a monumentally foolish oversight in his opinion...he reached them unhindered.

They were hunched over, examining the cache of supplies, when Ron found them, and he held his ground for a moment, just watching. The crackle and popping of the newly formed fire masked the sounds of Ron's approach, but after another couple of litas, Lainy heard the sound of rainwater dripping nearby and turned around. That's when he saw where it was coming from...the business end of a bare sword.

"Sart!" he yelped, leaping to his feet in a huff and retreating to the farthest wall of the recess.

Mannie followed his move and ended up slapping his head hard against the curving ceiling of the wood depression. Both of them then glanced at their weapons. Their crossbows were at Ron's feet, and their sword-belts leaned against the wall beside the bows. The men suddenly turned pale white instead of their usual swarthy tones.

Ron knew they were not cowards...none of the participants in the Games were...but he also knew they were trembling with fear. The only protection they still had on their persons was a knife each...hardly fitting weapons against a sword, especially if the man wielding it was Itsu, the clearly recognized champion of the Games in the eyes of all humans.

"What are we going to do?" Ron asked them.

Lainy came to his senses first. "We have no grudge against you, Itsu," he said quickly. "We will leave you here and find another refuge!"

Ron gazed at the man intensely, his visage looking like the specter of death with his long hair hanging down and dripping wet. "Press yourselves up against the wall, facing away," Ron ordered.

He could see the worry in their eyes as they glanced at one another.

"I am not going to kill you," he then said bluntly, but he still held the ebony rapier.

Mannie and Lainy slowly complied, feeling they had little choice in the matter.

Ron left his blade out, but set it and the scabbard down on the ground next to him as he crouched beside the small fire.

"You men seem to have been extremely fortunate to have found provisions and weapons so quickly...even this extra stash," Ron said as he warmed and dried himself.

"Yes," Mannie replied nervously, "the Lords truly were generous."

Lainy jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow.

"For giving us a sporting chance...I mean!" he added.

Ron just glared at their backs. Two teams already completely outfitted to feed and protect themselves was obviously too coincidental. It led substantial credence to Ilseff's claim.

"I suppose you wouldn't mind if I take this extra cache of supplies then?"

"No...no, of course not," Lainy replied quickly. "No, everyone should be on equal footing to make the Games more impartial."

Ron felt like laughing at such a ridiculous statement. "Good. I'm glad you agree," he replied.

When he felt warmer, he dug into the pack. It was still sealed because of the biometric locks his partner had employed.

"Cache, you incredible woman!" he thought fondly, releasing a loud sigh.

Inside the pack was almost everything he needed. There was a new set of clothes that he immediately donned, which were made from the same active camouflaging material he'd had on Earth. The masking ability of that fabric was phenomenal, able to blend with any surroundings. There was also a large (full) bladder of water, food packets of Raulden origin, and all of his throwing knives, as well as a med-kit. There were no shoes, but Ron preferred to go barefoot in the jungles anyway. It gave him a much better sense of his environment.

Ron used the medical supplies to clean and seal his wound before continuing.

"The only other thing I could have dreamed of would be..."

He found a note inside, at the bottom of the pack. Ron immediately raised his head to a level attitude before unfolding the paper, and then just lowered his eyes so he could read the message without the rest of the Triad seeing it. It was written in Earth English.

"Facing outward, along the left side of this hollowed area, you will find your bow and thirty arrows buried in the charred floor material. Be safe, fight hard, and trust no one!"

It was unsigned, but Ron knew who'd written it, and it warmed his heart to know she was looking out for him.

Ron loaded all his knives into their compartments, strapped his sword across his back in its custom harness, and then recovered his bow and strung it. Once his quiver was in place, as well as his pack, he returned his attention to his hosts.

"If I leave you both alive, will you attempt to kill me?" Ron queried.

"No! Itsu...no!" Mannie decreed instantly. "Like we said...we have no quarrel with you!"

Lainy stayed silent. That made Ron curious.

"Lainy?" Ron asked.

There was a long pause, but then the man's head moved up and down. "We must," he whispered.

"Well," Ron told them, sliding a ten-inch blade from one of his thigh sheaths, "at least you are honest."

The two men spun about quickly, expecting him to attack them and ready to fight as well as they could, but what they witnessed confused them all the more. Ron simply leaned over and cut the cords to their crossbows.

"Good luck with that," Ron said to them with a sly smirk, and then he just turned and walked out.

He left them the swords, the knives, and all their food supplies. They just looked at one another in total bewilderment.

### Chapter Fifty-two

### Survival

Ron left the two Qesicans and headed west. There was no real reason for it other than he felt he needed to keep moving, and the terrain was rising in that direction. High ground seemed like a good idea. Also, with nothing other than Isleff's word and his own suspicion, it sure seemed coincidental that two of the other teams had crossed his path within just one billot. It was as if they were told what direction he and Draake had gone, so it felt prudent to relocate.

The rain continued falling steadily, but not torrentially, and his Raulden clothing was completely waterproof, so it didn't bother him much as he drifted through the wooded land. He was as wary as a panther, and now that he was fully armed again, vastly more lethal.

Up he climbed in altitude, and although the island didn't have any real mountains, the area he was passing through was quite steep and rugged. It actually made him feel a bit more at ease there too because as he glided along the edge of an outcropping of a stony ridge, at least one direction presented no threat.

Dawn came and went as he travelled, the rain washing away any trail he might have left, and by midmorning the clouds finally relinquished to the power of the sun. Ron shook himself off like a wolf and then took the opportunity to enjoy a nice breakfast on a small, sunlit plateau of rock.

He had faced stressful, even dismal situations many times in the past, but Draake's passing felt like a tremendous burden at that moment. The entire team had been built around that massive fellow, and even though Ron had disagreed with the Benoi King on many fronts, he couldn't fault him for the one objective he'd given his life for...saving his people.

Now Ron was the final player of the impressive team that had dared threaten the Kreete's long string of unbroken victories. He would have to face the hell that was sure to come all alone. As was his typical pragmatic affinity though, he took in a deep breath of air, shoved those thoughts of loss and grief aside, and restored his primary focus...the present.

Ron slowly swept the open sky with his gaze, watching the last remnants of the recent storm pushing off across the ocean and marveling at the clarity left behind...as if the atmosphere had just enjoyed a refreshing scrubbing.

He smiled at that. Here he sat, in the final phase of the most heralded, most dangerous, and most prestigious sporting event in the known galaxy, and he felt at ease...calm and confident.

Those who ruled and enslaved so many different peoples across their empire had...through their supreme arrogance, no doubt...made a serious mistake. They had tipped their one advantage...that of surprise. They had openly told him their plan. They had warned the most elusive, cunning, and deadly fugitive they'd ever faced that this land was filled with threats of multiple types, and then sent inexperienced "athletes and ruffians" in pursuit of him.

(Would you send a champion biathlete, or a mob collection agent out into the jungle to hunt down a Seal Team Sniper?)

Ron's location was well sheltered from discovery, so he stretched out for a nice long nap in the warm sun. It was to be one final bit of rest before he would begin his new campaign...one of reprisal. It lasted barely a billot.

"Snap", sounded a breaking twig, fifty peors to the south...the exact direction Ron had come from.

Ron's eyes flashed open in the same instant, yet he remained perfectly still...listening. The brush of a body against the leaves of bushes was clear and distinct...but it was not a human body!

With incredible smoothness and absolute silence, Ron raised his bow in his left hand and slid an arrow from his quiver and nocked it up with his right, still lying flat on his back.

A human couldn't have tracked him, but the animal approaching was doing so as only a beast could manage...by scent alone. Ron could hear the creature sniffing...and something else.

He raised his torso up very slowly to have a look...and then his eyes flew open.

It was a Kitarcin Dragon!

The animal was reptilian, nearly ten peors long from nose to the tip of its tail, and vicious. It reminded Ron of Earth's Komodo Dragons, but it had a tall ridge of spiny bones that shot up from its back to prevent an aggressor from pouncing upon it. The beast had five long claws on each of its feet that aided it in climbing, digging, and fighting, and six rows of inch-long, curved teeth that were designed to latch onto its prey like the "hooks" side of Velcro does to the softer, loop side. Once those were locked on, the victim could struggle for billots while the dragon merely waited for it to exhaust itself. At that point, it would simply shred whatever it had caught with its fore-claws until it could swallow the pieces.

"Come on, Fido," Ron thought, "a little further. Nice and easy."

Ron drew back on his bowstring slowly, his bulging shoulders and head the only parts of his body raised above the flat rock, but when he did, another sound off to the east made his stomach clench tight. It came from just overhead, on the far side of the ridge, and was the unmistakable scratch of hardened claws on rock. It was the dragon's mate!

"Shit!" Ron cursed to himself as his brain jumped into overdrive.

To run was suicide because the beasts were much faster than humans, especially in the surrounding, rocky terrain...and on this world they could leap ten peors easily without sustaining any meaningful injury.

Ron did the only thing he could do...he attacked!

The first arrow slammed into the right eye of Fido, causing it to recoil violently and thrash the area in all directions. The problem was that the creature's eye socket and brain were too far apart for the arrow to kill the beast.

Ron leaped to his feet and let fly with three more in rapid succession, targeting its thick neck in hopes of destroying the creature's airway. That strategy instigated even more frantic reactions and added an incredibly piercing cry of pain and anger.

Ron had guessed that the attack on Fido would cause its mate (Fidora in his mind) to halt her convergence, and he was correct...only that didn't last long. The female dragon finally peered over the stony rise and saw her partner screaming and writhing across the ground, and so she too released an earth-shattering wail...only it was one of absolute rage!

As she topped the ridge and spied down at Ron, he pivoted around to face her and an arrow took flight. That deadly missile slammed into her chest, just at the junction of her wide neck, but she seemed to feel nothing of it. Instead, the huge, scaly animal merely targeted her prey and jumped!

Ron was already firing another of his black bolts of carnage into her flying form, but had to roll quickly to his left to avoid her pounce, and her raking claws. He sprang back to his feet in a beautiful maneuver that left him face to face with her enraged, howling maw, and so he immediately sent a ten-inch shard of blue steel racing down Fidora's gaping jaws, slowing her next charge.

The bow was at full draw again before she'd gagged even once, and four more times did Ron fire point-blank into the tough hide of the female dragon before she sprang forward and forced him to switch weapons.

Into the fray leaped the Raulden sword, and Ron fought at desperately close quarters from there.

Fidora's front claws were blindingly fast, and even the hyper-sharp metal he held could not stop them. She pressed him back...and back...for a good twenty peors...until he was literally climbing the stony ridge in hasty retreat, not even sure how much more room he had.

He kept the super-blade between him and the dragon enough to only receive some minor wounds, but he suspected his avenue of mobility was running out, and fast.

At the last moment before his back was physically against the wall (a sheer cliff-face five peors high) Ron grabbed the twelve-inch blade from behind his neck and jammed it directly into the animal's snout...a very sensitive area. That forced Fidora to recoil for just an instant, and allowed Ron to make a desperate leap.

But instead of chancing a ten-foot drop down to the next level of the stony terrain and making a run for it, Ron sprang up and over her snarling head and onto her back. He landed with the shadow sword tip-down and sunk it to the hilt just behind her front shoulder.

The giant female lizard twisted as hard as she possibly could, due to the pain she was feeling as well as to try and get at Ron, but he'd guessed perfectly at her overall flexibility, and was out of reach of her menacing jaws as well as her hind feet.

Unfortunately for him though, her tail was much more maneuverable, and it suddenly whipped around and swatted him hard, smashing him against her dorsal spines. Those sharp, serrated shards of bone dug into his back and side painfully, and the overall blow rattled Ron's senses, but it didn't knock him completely out of the fight.

Before the next snap of that tail could do even more damage, Ron ripped his sword free in a long, gashing move that placed it directly in the path of the incoming band of scaly muscle. The next lita saw five feet of Fidora's tail being separated from her body before Ron then dove forward with his black razor, burying it into the back of her skull.

Instantaneously, the huge, thrashing, screaming creature slumped to the ground in a heap...as if a switch had been suddenly flipped to the off position.

Ron's chest was heaving and his head was still swimming a bit from the blows he'd sustained, but his attention to the battle never faltered. Without a single moment of respite, he whirled about to find Fido again. That beast had stayed out of reach of his larger mate's thrashing figure, but now it surged in to avenge her.

It had only one working eye though, and was grievously wounded in multiple locations, so was not nearly the adversary the female had been. Ron dashed over Fidora's corpse and took up his bow once more before Fido could reach him.

Two more arrows had the male dragon gagging and totally blinded, and from there it was easy enough to end the struggle altogether with one last thrust of the dark sword.

As he hauled his long weapon free of the dead animal, Ron had a powerful urge to throw his head back and release his own blasting call into the wild, but he reigned that in and merely stood there panting instead.

To announce his exact position like that would have been a terribly careless error.

His hands were trembling from the ebbing rush of adrenaline, and he was gasping in great gulps of air while he took a quick tally of his condition.

He was covered with blood from head to toe, but most of it wasn't his, so that was good. The wounds he had received were annoying but not that serious, so all told, he was in rather good shape.

Ron then took a quick look around however, and saw that he was now out in the open and exposed on three fronts, so he hastened to retrieve his weapons. His beautiful blue throwing knives were first, but getting the one out of the throat of the dragon was no easy task.

He propped her jaws open with a bowling-ball-sized rock, and then had to lie down on the ground and shove his arm down the creature's tooth-lined mouth almost to the shoulder to reach it. He felt around for a few moments, wondering for a short while if he might have to hack his way in to get it, but his fingers finally located the blade.

"Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!" came a sudden sound, right before his left forearm began to burn fiercely.

"Humph!" Ron grunted in a quick realization of just what had happened.

A bolt from a crossbow now had his arm pinned to the carcass of the dragon. Ron threw his head back to see where that shot had come from and saw two men running towards him. They were Istalites, tall and lean and well-muscled.

From thirty peors away, Ron thought they could easily be from Dex's planet as their skin was a black as his had been, and their features were vaguely similar, but his interest shifted swiftly from their heritage to the immediate threat they posed. He noted that only one was carrying an empty weapon.

Ron gave a quick glance at his wounded arm and tried to twist it...to snap off the shaft that held him trapped, but the intrusion of the missile was pressing on a nerve that caused his arm to quiver and not respond.

He monitored the attackers with his ears as he hastily worked his right arm out of the dragon's throat, but those hooked teeth were making that endeavor a challenge. He was mentally counting the litas, wondering why they hadn't taken another shot, and hoped the fellow wielding the bow was just confident that he was trapped and was waiting for a sure kill shot.

Ron had his arm halfway out...and the men were barely ten peors away...when he heard them stop suddenly.

"Here it comes," he thought, still wriggling his arm back another foot. It was almost free.

A quick glance back at the men revealed their position...and Ron saw the fellow drawing a bead on him, so he moved!

Before the Istalite could squeeze the trigger, Ron's arm flew out of the huge mouth of the dragon...and the blue dagger seemed even faster. The double-edged knife tore through the man's shoulder and fouled his aim, causing the arrow to sail over the ridge and out of sight, and for him to spin about harshly and trip over some rocks. He crumpled to the rocky ground immediately, shrieking in agony.

His partner...the one who'd fired at Ron and then never reloaded...leaped aside when his teammate fell away, and now stared at Ron with open fear.

Ron had lost some hide from his arm in that frantic maneuver, but ignored it and gripped the arrow holding him in place. A firm flexing of his powerful biceps sheared the shaft off in a blink and he was free.

With the fletching still sticking out of one side of his arm, and the nub of the shaft out the other, Ron snapped his feet up over his head in a backward tumble that sent him closer to his attacker. As his body pivoted around, he snatched his other throwing knife from the dragon's snout and then sent that perfectly balance blade straight into the chest of the second Istalite.

That man froze for an instant...so shocked that his only expression was of utter surprise...and then he dropped to his knees before falling over stone dead.

As if the arrow still in his arm were merely a splinter, Ron strode over to the other aggressor quickly. The man was still screaming the high-pitched wail of sheer misery, and Ron didn't want any more attention, so he smashed the fellow across the jaw with a right hook that ended the nonstop noise.

With peace and quiet restored to the scene, Ron took a few moments to scan the surrounding countryside. He saw nothing moving. It was very calm though, and he wondered why that was. With the battle over and the man's shrieking quelled, he thought the wilds would have returned to normal almost immediately...yet they hadn't.

He quickly plucked his knives free, cleaned, and stored them, and then returned to his former camp where he inspected his arm carefully. He found that the arrow had missed the bones, which was immensely fortuitous, and so it wasn't difficult to clear away the tiny bits of broken wood from the arrow and then yank it free. Once that was done, the feeling returned to his limb...although not without substantial throbs of discomfort.

At that point, Ron set about hastily gathering some items he thought might come in handy, all the while scanning the ridge, as well as the lower area, for more threats.

When all was ready, he prepared to treat the wound to his arm with his med-kit when his senses lit up once more...although this time it was much different.

From the south, the east, and the west, there were multiple adversaries stalking him in a coordinated effort.

"What the hell?" he wondered, even as he unconsciously (yet hastily) secured his belongings to his person. "I guess that 'Isleff' guy was on the level! Shit! It's me against everyone else!"

Ron turned toward the only direction that appeared to be open...north...the way he'd been headed before, and struck out at a fast pace. He figured he could easily outrun them as long as the route remained navigable, especially since they would have to use great caution in trailing him because they would know he was armed as soon as they investigated the battleground.

The route turned more treacherous as the day wore on however, and so he was forced to slow down, but at least the enemy was falling behind...or so he thought.

When the sun's light began to fade, Ron finally realized a terrible fact. The pursuit wasn't what it seemed at all. He was being herded!

That epiphany of course, came far too late for him to choose an optional route. By the time he understood the truth, the ridge he'd been following was barely even passable. To the east, the land dropped off precipitously, and was very open to the lower ground. If he were to attempt scaling down the steep slope, he would be completely exposed to whoever might be lying in wait down there. And after the last billot's progress, the west had him hemmed in with a two-hundred-foot cliff to the open ocean, which extended as far as he could see.

Ron stood for a moment just staring down at the crashing waves below him, and he fumed.

"The Kreete knew exactly where I was, and funneled me here on purpose," he concluded in a growling confession to himself. "You should have known, you idiot! They would expect me to go opposite the way they did...that's why they left it wide open! And after they'd pointed me in the right direction, they knew any capable soldier in a new environment would seek out high ground to get a lay of the land. They had me pegged right from the start!"

He didn't linger there very long however, knowing he was rapidly running out of time to come up with a plan, so his thoughts shifted away from how he'd gotten there and focused on what would come next.

At sundown Ron found a good, protected spot in the rocks and made camp. He even built a small fire to stay warm because the breeze off the water had made the temperature plummet. The glow from his fire would be easily visible, but the depression he'd picked was well protected from attack by those down below, so he didn't worry over it.

"They'll be coming at dawn," he thought with a certainty he'd gained through his vast and varied encounters. "I guess I might as well get some rest."

With that, Ron nestled himself into a crevice that was out of the wind, yet close to the fire, patched his wounded arm up, and went to sleep.

### Chapter Fifty-three

### Not so Fast

Exactly as he'd predicted, the search parties amassed just before the sun could break ground on the horizon. Five separate teams covered the ridgeline and the southern lower country, while the Kreete group approached from the east. He was surrounded. It was a flawless strategy.

A pair of Cymars (squat, broad-chested men from a fairly primitive, yet fierce race on the planet, Cy), approached from the southwest and crept forward along the ridge with their crossbows at the ready. Their thick, short arms were extremely powerful, and their dense bones, born on a class 10.3 world would be difficult to break, making them excellent allies for the Kreete in close quarters fighting.

Grayle and his men slinked in from the north. By then they could see exactly where Ron's camp was by tiny wisps of smoke drifting up from the remnants of the fire he'd built, and there were almost imperceptible sounds of someone fussing about also. They finally had him cornered!

Ron had chosen his campsite well however, so they were forced to use extreme caution. It was only a shallow depression, but it gave him a good amount of protection from both sides, due to the layout of the rocks, and so was easily defensible. It took nearly another half-billot's time before the united teams finally rushed his position.

With a fantastic, awe-inspiring roar, Grayle Neese leaped the final few peors into the camp with his sword raised high, ready to meet the infamous Itsu in mortal combat. The next instant though, the early morning air was shattered again by the Kreete's bellowing cry...only this time it was from pain, not from battle.

When he let out that second shriek, his men, as well as those on the other side, all thought the massive Kreete had fallen prey to the devil they hunted in some elaborately devised trap, so they surged forward to his aid. They would overrun the fugitive with their numbers. It would be over quickly...and it was.

Their assessment wasn't exactly incorrect either, because what awaited the charging warriors was, in fact a trap...of sorts. Scattered across the ground inside his camp, Ron had set up almost fifty spikes. They were broken slivers of the bony cresting from the dragons' backs. He'd used the unbreakable tip of his sword to make small fissures in the granite, and filled them with the stolen spines sticking up almost four inches.

When Grayle landed, three pieces of those tough fragments of reptilian protection pierced his booted feet without hesitation. Yet even with that agony searing its way to his brain, the real reason he'd screamed was because the camp was empty!

His surprise was so overwhelming that he didn't even think to stop his reinforcements from following him in, so two more men, one from his team, and one from the humans, both ended up with similar injuries.

In one crafty move, Ron had taken three more opponents out of action...and escaped.

Over the following billot, the teams regrouped and investigated the scene thoroughly. There was a great deal of accusations about how the four teams down below had allowed their quarry to elude them out in the open...and that nearly ended in a fatal way...until a single clue was found.

Plotann...one of the Kreete...noticed a peculiar stripe in the moss that grew on the rocks all about. Upon closer examination, that thin line turned out to have been caused by a braided cord being pulled tight against the surface, like from someone anchoring a rope for repelling.

Once that was noted, it wasn't very difficult to find evidence of a person making their way down the cliff on the water's side. After that, his trail was gone.

"That is impossible!" Grayle roared. He was lying flat on his back at that point, his right Achilles tendon severed completely, and his left foot too ruined to walk any further without real medical attention, but he still felt the need to maintain some control. "The water is too rough and too cold to swim in! He must have found a pocket, or cave to hide in! Find it!"

From there, every person on scene was put in motion trying to determine where Ron could have gone. They sent men over the cliff at a dozen points for a hundred peors in both directions. That took a great deal of time, and only ended when they came to the only conclusion remaining...that he had somehow escaped in the ocean.

"Take half the men south," Grayle finally ordered, "and the other half north...and find that dragen flarge!"

Ron had rested for only a couple of billots before setting up his little trap. Then, using the Raulden rope and clip from his pack, he'd dropped to the very edge of the waves far below where he found enough footing to take the stress off the clip long enough for it to release. He imagined the confusion that simple action would cause...appearing as if he'd simply vanished...and smiled. Then, while balancing precariously on that tiny sliver of stone, he coiled the cord quickly, staring out into the surging, angry turmoil of the water.

With no moon out as of yet, the ocean was lit only by starlight, and was so dark he could barely make out the frothy whitecaps to tell him where the crests were. The spray of the crashing sea drenched him thoroughly too, but that wasn't the difficult part. Once he had everything stowed securely, he had to time his dive just right to be able to catch an outgoing swell...to keep from being slammed against the very stone he stood upon.

That leap tested his nerve like never before too, because he had to work strictly off his memory of what he'd seen from two hundred feet up in the dimming sunlight of the previous evening. And all the while, he had no idea what sea creatures might be lurking out there in the inky blackness of that foreign ocean, ready to devour his body for an easy meal.

Ron calmed his anxiety through the force of his will and made a perfect dive into a gap between two jagged boulders barely as wide as he was tall. Then, using every ounce of strength he could muster, he cleared the pounding surf and struck south, back the way he'd come.

Either way was a gamble of course, but at least he knew what awaited him in that direction.

The water was frigid, and seemed to be furious that he'd invaded its domain, the choppy sea pounding and rocking him at every chance, but he had little choice in the matter. There were too many opponents up top for him to either fight through or evade, so he merely set his mind to the task and swam.

By sunrise, when his enemies first attacked Ron's little camp, his arms were numb from the cold as well as the chore, and yet he held to his smooth, powerful stroke. By mid-morning, when they first realized his escape route, he could no longer feel any part of his body, yet he held to his smooth, powerful stroke. By midday, when they had ten men dangling from ropes all along his last known location, Ron was so cold his brain was barely able to function and he began to wonder if he would even recognize his destination if he reached it, yet still he held to his smooth, powerful stroke.

Ron Allison...Itsu to most of the Games' viewers...was an engine fed by pure, unyielding determination.

By the time the searchers had finally formulated a plan and set off in blind pursuit of that supremely elusive creature some called Shartae, Ron was weakly hauling himself out of the salty water on a stony beach almost fifteen hoz away.

He had beaten his attackers, but quickly found a new enemy to combat at that point...his own body.

The distance he'd swum in such adverse conditions was both monumental and horrific. Thereby, he was completely exhausted from battling the surging waves that had threatened to shatter his bones against the rocky shoreline at every stroke. And now, he had to struggle his way through the numbing effects of the cold to calm his bodies quaking, or risk a debilitating cramp or even a muscle tear.

Luckily the camouflage duties of his clothing quickly changed from ocean-blue to a perfect match of the dark volcanic stone he lay upon...and he immediately welcomed that. However, it still took nearly half a billot of lying on the black rocks and absorbing the sun's heat for Ron to regain use of his limbs enough to crawl completely clear of the water.

When he did at last reach dry ground though, he immediately forced himself up to his feet and began a series of exercises to restore his blood flow and limber his aching muscles and joints.

While he did that, he faced the wooded land that stretched to the east...his animal instincts ramping up once more. He drained half his water supply as his eyes devoured the tree-line, searching for any form of threat that might be lurking just out of sight, and he downed two tubes of his rations to begin rebuilding his strength.

Finally, Ron strung his bow, exposed his quiver of arrows from the watertight cover he'd used, checked each of his throwing knives for ease of access, and pulled his sword clear of its scabbard to validate it as well.

Upon completing his inspection, Ron headed straight toward the woods. Where the rocks gave way to the sandy ground, there would be no way to hide his trail, but he no longer wished to.

"Let them come," he thought as he vanished into the shadows.

### Chapter Fifty-four

### Hide and Seek

Ron spent the remainder that day hiking further into the interior of the island and truly getting to know the forest with all its unique, natural inhabitants, as well as study some of the newly added creatures as well.

He came across six of the Kreete's traps, four of which had already been sprung, and decided to make some adjustments and additions to those dangerous devices. He reloaded two of them and concealed them better than they had been, but adjacent to the other four that had already served their purpose, he constructed new snares. He designed them not to kill, but to incapacitate their victims well enough to remove them from further competition.

Another goal of his was to locate the museum again, and to gain an understanding of the terrain that surrounded it. He felt that knowledge might be critical as the final day arrived.

The domed structure was just as it had been at the onset of the event. The grassy field encompassing it was a hundred peors wide and there was not a single point that allowed any form of concealment. Ron smiled. The dash to the finish would be out in the open...exposed to any remaining contestants. And not only that, but the seven lita timer meant that no one could sprint from the woods to the door before it swapped to another position. It meant that the final few would have to battle out in the open, in full view of the audience.

He briefly wondered how many other contestants would the Kreete allow to live that long.

As Ron scouted the area, he spotted three teams who'd set up camps within sight of the dome. That might seem like a good strategy until you considered that while you are stationary with a fixed point of view and a limited sight line, someone on the move could find you, isolate you, and then eliminate you.

Ron let them be though, and drifted into the woods again, continuing his mission of familiarization. By the end of the fourth night, he knew the land within five hoz of the museum better than anyone else...even the Kreete...and so he did what he did best.

Day 7:

The star shining above the planet inched its way toward zenith, and the countdown timer hanging in the air above the giant glass bubble of the museum read 1 billot remaining. Two Kreete soldiers stepped out of the concealing vegetation and moved toward the structure as best they could. One was the team captain, Grayle Neese, and the other was Warce.

Mirdesh had been badly maimed by Ron's trap on the mountain and was even then waiting for the finale to end so he could be collected and patched up. The other two had died fighting a small pride Caronian Wraith Cats. When Ron came across those familiar beasts at the eastern portion of the island on day five, he'd almost laughed. Of all the creatures they could have picked, they'd chosen a species that he'd faced up close and personal...and therefore knew very well. Their camouflaging abilities were remarkable. Ron had then doubled back to where the Kreete were returning from their hunting expedition (hunting him) and lured them straight into the lions' newly formed territory. At that point, he'd simply taken to the trees and let them fight it out.

Presently though, Grayle limped heavily on his damaged feet, continuing onward through the mind-numbing pain simply because of his own steadfast desire to not fail. Warce followed just behind him with his crossbow held at the ready. He too was damaged, but not as severely. His left bicep was wrapped tightly with bandage, as was his head, but he barely limped and his alertness was keen.

They stood out there in the open and surveyed the field as if daring anyone to challenge their supreme authority to claim the scepter. No one else joined them in the hot sun.

Ron let them bake alone as well, but watched them closely until five borts were left, and then he decided it was time to join them, but he was a pitiful sight by that point.

He staggered out into the open grassland with his bow in his left hand and his right fingers gripping the last of his arrows, already nocked in place. He'd considered firing from the tree line to take out at least one of them, but even raising his bow was a monumentally painful act, and he doubted his accuracy to hit his target at that distance.

He carried an arrow in his body that pierced his chest and right lung completely...a souvenir from a battle on the previous day...one in which he slew the five men who'd ambushed him, but couldn't escape unscathed.

Over Ron's left eye was a thick patch of cloth that kept the intensely painful inputs of sunlight through that wrecked orb from driving him mad. That damage was attained two days prior in a fight with a Nionisian wolf dragon. The creature could expel (spit) a chemical mixture almost twenty-five peors that burned living flesh like hydrochloric acid, and Ron had caught a face full of spatter when the beast had errantly struck a tree right beside him. Only by diving into a nearby pool of water had he kept his eye from boiling right in its socket. From there it had taken Ron three billots of frantic running and fighting to finally put an arrow through the creature's brain and end the conflict. The agony of that battle had carried over to the following day however, to such an extent that he'd stumbled into the well-conceived ambush.

Ron also limped on a broken leg...a cleanly snapped tibia he'd received in the same fight where he took the arrow in the chest, but even with all of that, his purpose was as steady as his one good eye.

Before the run-in with the dragon, he'd planned to hunt down the remaining Kreete squad and eradicate them from contention, but since that setback, he was forced to merely survive and wait for his chance to present itself. Now it had.

Grayle leaned on his teammate heavily, his severed Achilles tendon ruining his ability to balance himself on his own. Also three shards of dragon-fin bone were still lodged in his other foot and pressed on too many nerves to ignore. For the previous sixty-five borts, the promise that his long excruciating ordeal might be over had built up in his mind, but when he saw Ron emerge from the woods, his face visibly fell.

He'd hoped so profoundly that the unbelievable human before him had somehow perished on that island of death that he felt a powerful sudden pang of defeat sweep through his entire body. That icy chill raced along his spine even though he was still well-armed with knife and sword, and his own man...a Master Killer ranked Kreete warrior...was there with him wielding a formidable long range weapon.

Warce stared at Ron, and Ron stared back. The fellow did not feel the same panic his leader was experiencing...however...he couldn't help but have a certain thought run through his mind; "Is it true what they say...that this tiny flarge cannot be killed?"

Ron had a completely different thought on his mind though.

"You do not need to die today," he told the soldier who stood a foot and a half taller than he did. "Just take your captain and walk away."

Of course Ron knew he wouldn't.

In the next half lita, three things happened. Grayle released his grip on Warce and fell away to the grass, Warce swung his crossbow around to take aim at Ron and fired, and Ron Allison snapped his beautifully crafted, custom designed recurve weapon up and did the same.

The extreme anguish of drawing so powerful a bow nearly made Ron pass out...feeling like a white-hot nail was being driven through his chest...but it also saved his life because when he loosed his arrow, the resulting stab of pain caused his body to recoil violently. That sharp maneuver, although involuntary, moved his torso just enough so that the Kreete's incoming wooden missile merely clipped his left shoulder and grazed along his chest until it contacted his right collarbone, shattering it in a horrible, bloody explosion.

Ron spun harshly about and fell face-first in the grass, his brain ringing like it was inside a bell and the burning in his chest and shoulder causing him to wheeze and wince in absolute agony.

Those in the electronic audience that were hanging on Ron's every move from wherever they lived across the wide Empire, all gasped and cringed in horror...tears bursting from their eyes at their hero's horrible fate. Many dropped to their knees and vomited. Cache Kuar was one of those. Arsisi was crying openly, her tears draining down her face in rivers while her master leaped from his command seat and screamed in triumph.

Ron lay there for several litas, his mind in so much torment that he couldn't collect his thoughts enough to even remember where he was. Finally though, something happening behind him brought his senses back into focus. It was a very loud thud.

Ron struggled feebly to turn his head around and locate the Kreete pair. When he did, he saw Grayle kneeling beside the prone body of his sole remaining teammate. A black arrow was sticking straight up out of Warce's chest into the noontime sunshine.

Another few litas passed and Ron forced himself to his own knees with his left arm. Alien admirers from a hundred worlds and a thousand ships leaped to their feet, instantly holding their breaths.

"He yet lived!" their minds screamed.

The world around Ron swam badly, drifting in and out of focus from the crashing waves of pain. It took a tremendous effort to force his double vision to coalesce once more, but he finally managed it.

He left the bow where it had fallen because it was useless to him now. He could no longer draw it, and even if he could, he had not more arrows to fire anyway.

The watching billions froze wherever they were.

Cache wiped her mouth and composed herself enough to stare at the viewer again, her empathy for Ron's plight forcing her entire body to shake and sweat. Beside her, a Cnaut glided in and began removing the mess from the floor of the ebony spacecraft.

Another half bort later, Ron forced himself to his feet again. Grayle was struggling to roll Warce over by then, searching for another arrow for the crossbow that he'd already pulled to the ready position. Unfortunately, Warce's massive figure had fallen on the quiver and the first three he removed were broken.

Ron was ten peors away when Grayle found a usable one, and only five when he had it loaded and the bow pressed to his shoulder. Ron would have reached for a throwing blade, but they were all gone too, used up and lost in skirmishes over the last three days. He had nowhere to run and no agility left to avoid such a point-blank shot. He simply gritted his teeth and growled at the massive warrior, his dark blade gripped in his left hand in stark defiance to the Triad's final act against him.

Suddenly, as if the Guardian himself had reached out in that moment to stop Ron's certain demise yet again, an arrow slammed into Grayle's bow-stock and pushed it aside. The missile that should have buried itself into Ron's heaving chest, instead, skipped off a rib and traveled onward and harmlessly into the grass.

Through all the savage inputs his body was sending to his brain, Ron barely felt the glancing blow. His eyes and ears however, did recognize the event, and so he paused and looked to his right...back at the forest. Two men stepped forward just then, each holding a crossbow. One of them took a moment and cocked his weapon again, reloading it swiftly and returning his focus to the pair of contestants out on the close-cropped meadow. It was Qesicans; Lainy and Mannie...the men Ron had met while searching for his stash of supplies...the men Ron had spared.

Ron stared long and hard at them as they approached, wondering exactly what their intentions were.

"Itsu," Lainy shouted while still closing the gap between them, "I believe this repays the debt I owe you! A life for a life."

Ron bowed his head slightly and saluted the man with his sword.

"What...about...now," Ron queried, finding it extremely difficult to speak in his dismal, pathetic state. He then indicated Grayle. "Clearly we are at a disadvantage."

The countdown timer hanging above was showing one bort to go.

"We are just here to see how it ends," Lainy assured Ron, pulling up short of his and Grayle's position. "Even if we rush in and take the scepter, it would mean little to our overall standings. No, we only showed up to see which of you is the superior being. My wager is on you."

Ron then faced his hated enemy once more, still gripping the black sword tightly.

"One more dance with the devil!" he thought.

Grayle growled at the intervention, but rose to a standing attitude, his ruined feet searing with pain as if they were being burned off beneath his massive bulk. He too staggered, as did Ron, but he drew his sword nonetheless.

Other than the torn muscles, tendons, and ligaments that supported him, Grayle was whole, and his strength could easily crush Ron if he were to somehow grapple with him, but Ron did not back down.

"You need not die this day, Grayle," Ron warned the towering fellow.

"I do not intend to," the Kreete Master Killer replied.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG!

The timer had reached zero.

Ron's attention went to the museum instantly, searching for the lighted door, and he saw it straightaway. It was only forty peors away, ringed in a band of bright red...the Kreete's victory color.

He knew of course, that he could not make it to the door in time in his condition, so he returned his eyes to his opponent. Grayle too was staring longingly at that portal, but with a similar conclusion, and so they face one another once more.

Ron lunged in, and it began.

Grayle was an excellent swordsman and parried the shadow-blade a dozen times in the opening volley, so Ron took another tact. He couldn't allow the fight to go on too long because he could hardly draw a decent breath, so he moved to his right, circling Grayle...forcing the huge being to move as well. Ron's fractured leg felt like it was being broken anew with every step, but he merely recalled his days in the dungeons of Huinrag and fought on. If it would hold him upright, he could take the pain.

Grayle was also adept at managing his torment, following Ron's motions well, and even making a few good moves himself.

Ron retreated stiffly at one of those attacks and stumbled to his knee, letting out a harsh, high-pitched squeal of misery, and Grayle saw his chance. He gambled everything and dove forward, his four-foot-long, double-edged blade streaking down at Ron's smaller, badly broken form...but his tip simply buried itself in the green turf.

In a move that no one would have imagined he could still make, Ron twisted about and escaped the lunge, ending up just behind the falling Kreete.

Ron wanted to kill that fellow with every ounce of his soul, but instead, he did something much worse. With a single swipe of the ultra-sharp blade Cache Kuar had built for him, he hamstrung both the mighty warrior's legs and ended the battle.

That dramatic, incredible maneuver had its price though, and he stumbled badly, dropping to one knee as his body's misery soared to new heights. His vision went dark and his equilibrium sloshed until he nearly toppled over completely.

He remained where he was for the next two borts, just gasping for the tiniest bit of air that seemingly eluded him. His lungs burned like fire in his desperation, and he thought he would surely suffocate as oxygen seemed to be nowhere within reach...but slowly...agonizingly slowly...he began to recover.

At last Ron's condition improved enough for him to see again...and after that, to think.

The sounds of footsteps hurrying past him jarred his thoughts enough for his eyes to seek out those who made them. When he did, he saw two men from the Loatiny team standing on either side of an open door with drawn swords, as if guarding it.

Ron gathered himself once again and stood, his broad, blood-covered chest vibrating with a low rumble...a clear warning.

The men standing sentry at that portal heard his angry challenge and quickly held up their free hands in submission.

"Fear not, Itsu!" one of them shouted a clarification. "This door lit up and we only wished to keep you from missing the opportunity."

Deep in the back recesses of his mind Ron wanted to thank them, but he was still in battle mode and so he merely ground his teeth together and started hobbling forward.

The two Loatinians let their blades fall to the grass and bowed deeply as he approached, not daring to chance a misunderstanding that might end up with them both dead, and Ron passed through.

When he entered the coliseum/museum, the shockwave of screaming fans nearly sent him to his knees again, so loud was the roar. Once again, not a single Kreete citizen could be seen in the virtual recreation of the audience.

Ron paid them no attention however, too focused on the golden scepter waiting for him, and just limped along.

When he was twenty peors into the building, twelve humans funneled into the structure behind him. Of the thirty-five men who'd started the seventh challenge, they were all that were left mobile enough to be there. Seven others were suffering through grave injuries out in the wilds, praying for it to be over. The rest were dead.

Ron moved forward in steps less than a quarter of his usual stride, and those behind him patiently kept pace. They did not aid him, nor did they try to rush him. They just wanted to see...to be there in person when a human man finally defeated the Kreete in the grandest show in the galaxy.

When Ron was only a few steps away however, the floor of the museum suddenly opened and a gargantuan figure rose straight up next to the slim prize. It was Peerc Goff, the Reaper Class Kreete champion from the last Triad Games...and he was armed to the teeth!

### Chapter Fifty-five

### The Victor

Ron halted his approach immediately, but he did not retreat. Instead, he gripped the black sword with renewed vigor and his chest began vibrating again, stoking his internal furnace.

He had no chance whatsoever of course, but he would die fighting.

Peerc stepped up next to the scepter and stopped, his enormous hand grasping the hilt of his sword, and regarded Ron.

Ron was still ten feet away and he glared up at the humanoid creature's silver eyes towering two and a half feet above his own.

Peerc could read the resignation in Ron's body language and knew he would fight...but his most recent conversation with Maice Lorr had been very clear...and so it forced him to alter his plans.

The Games were normally broadcast with a half-billot delay in order to have time to edit out anything they didn't quite care for, such as their team losing. That being so, they'd planned to have Peerc slay Ron, at which time they would digitally recreate the ending so that their team captain would be champion. It was a simple, flawless plan...except that somehow in the past billot, the feed had been hijacked and forced into the 'live' mode.

Now it was impossible to circumvent what they'd tried so desperately to avoid.

Instead of assassinating the man half his mass, Peerc merely waved his hand in a casual, even congenial manner, directing Ron to collect his reward.

"Please, Itsu, take what you have so bravely won and let everyone finally know the name of the world your team represents."

Ron reached up and stowed his sword before taking those last, haggard steps. And even as he grasped the golden scepter, he half expected Peerc to attack him.

At last Ron gripped the scepter marking the end of the Triad Games, and he held it up toward the hundreds of millions of spectators as if he'd won it for them. The screaming, roaring, whistling, clapping, and crying people went even more berserk than normal at that, and it took fifteen borts for them to settle down.

At the moment Ron touched the slim trophy, the Games were officially completed, and so a mednaut drifted up from a hidden compartment in the floor and glided silently over to the broken form of Ron Allison. Less than a bort later, the excruciating pain Ron had felt was cut by three-quarters after the compact medical aide placed a neural suppressor at the base of his neck. He could still feel inputs enough to remain erect, but the harsh, sharp reports of his mangled body he'd been enduring were mostly gone. He nearly cheered.

Peerc stood by without flinching, allowing Ron his moment in the sun as he'd enjoyed upon his own victory. It was impossible to tell for sure, but Ron would think back to that time, dactrais later, and get the definite feeling that the giant warrior actually respected him...no matter his urge to slay him.

"And to who do we honor with such a magnificent performance," Peerc finally asked, still waiting for Ron to announce his sponsor.

Ron faced the men in the room with them, and then his eyes scanned the artificial crowds all about.

"First, I would like to say that I would not be standing here if it hadn't been for the sacrifices of so many others. To the people of Dexratlige Marrsoman Ruubin's planet, to Barthume Headigon's homeworld, and to Fraidze Zanferi's as well...I give you my deepest thanks. Each of those men has shown the finest character, skill, and bravery that anyone could ask for. And to the giant Ultras of Benoi; without your fellows volunteering to develop our team, none of this would have been achievable. It's really as simple as that."

On the Confarii;

Maice was on a conference call with the Triad Games Committee at that very moment, trying to decide how to manage the loss...doing damage control.

"So we will lose Benoi for seven cycles," Tsealan Oviun was saying. "It won't matter. In fact, it's too difficult to keep men stationed there anyway. They can't survive without exo-suits, every bit of food has to be shipped in, and the water has to go through an expensive decontamination process before we can even drink it."

"Yes, but the minerals we've discovered there are found nowhere else in the Triad," said Menalious...one of the regional governors who ruled that section of the Empire. "And I will lose a significant amount of income."

"It will only be for seven cycles, Menalious," counseled the third; Firthennine. "The ban will be over before you know it."

"You two don't care because it won't affect you, that's all," he retorted.

"While that is true," Tsealan said, "you'll just have to accept..."

"I claim this victory in the name of those courageous men, but for the planet of...Ordice."

"WHAT?" Tsealan screamed, leaping to his feet at once, his horrid gray-skinned face turning a pasty shade of brown (their version of bright red).

The Triad Games Committee had never guessed that such a species with no warrior's to speak of, could have possibly pulled off such a scheme. It was unconscionable. They immediately began bellowing at one another over the coms.

"NO!" Firthennine yelled.

"WE CANNOT LOSE THAT PLANET!" cried Menalious. "DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT WILL MEAN?"

"Deny it! Stop him! This cannot be allowed!" they all yelled at Maice.

"Order that flarge to choose another world or have Peerc slay him right there in front of the entire Empire!" Tsealan ordered Maice Lorr.

"But it is too late, my Lords," Maice told them all. "It has already been announced. Remember? The broadcast is live." He eased back in his seat then and held his breath.

"WHAT?" they screamed at once. "It was supposed to be delayed a half billot, you dragen piss-bucket!" Tsealan yelled.

"Yes, Lord," acknowledged Maice, "however, due to some technical difficulties with our bandwidth, we could not skew the timeline as we had hoped."

"Speak plainly, you useless sack of..." Tsealan said.

"He's saying that someone with more expertise than our best communications' team of more than...how many?" began Firthennine.

"Fifty-four technicians, Lord," Maice replied.

"Fifty-four technicians, has hi-jacked our signal and overridden our security protocols to force the broadcast into the 'live' mode. Is that about right, Maice?"

The communications commander was visibly shaking by then. "Yes, Lord."

They all sat perfectly still for a long pause after that, just thinking.

"Then that is that," said Menalious, his focus suddenly shifting away from that terrible loss. "But it doesn't mean that we come away from this empty-handed. This is what we'll do..."

On the planet:

"Very well, Itsu," Peerc said to Ron. He had no personal knowledge of the planet in question, having spent his entire career on the opposite side of the Empire. "From this moment, until the next Games comes to a conclusion, the world of Ordice is free of all Kreete involvement. Every Kreete citizen will be evacuated and every Ordicean citizen will be immediately returned to their homeworld, no matter their location. Any hostilities will cease, and all disputes will be forfeit in favor of the Ordiceans."

Ron stared at the giant warrior with open skepticism. Peerc saw his expression and added a proclamation.

"That is the law of the Triad Games...and so is the ultimate law of our ruling authority!"

Ron had no way of confirming his pledge, but it was accepted whole-heartedly by the fans looking on from their virtual vantage points, wherever they might physically be.

Ron bowed to the massive fellow and then gazed up at the fans, turning slowly about until he'd saluted them all with the victor's scepter. He was unaware that Peerc was receiving orders over his com-link while he did so.

Ron did, however, notice a shadow flash overhead, but he did not see the vessel.

"Now, Itsu, if you will step outside, we will get you to the med-station that just landed. I would wager that you would be eager for that."

Ron turned and walked slowly back out the way he'd come with the mednaut still hovering beside his ruined shoulder. It had already cleaned the wound to his clavicle and extracted the bone fragments, but that was about as far as it could go until he was prone and still.

His first thoughts though were about where the other survivors had gone, as they were nowhere in sight anymore.

"They must already be headed to the med-ship too," he guessed, but something in his stomach began to churn.

The tall doors opened upon their approach, flooding the two champions with intense light that blinded them momentarily...just long enough for Ron's bare, bloody feet to feel the grass once more. His Caronian glands surged into operation quickly, but not quite quickly enough...although he had to admit, it would have done no good.

As Ron's vision returned, he saw exactly what he'd expected three days ago...ninety-eight fully armored Kreete soldiers with crossbows aimed right at him. To the north and south were their shuttles...where the med-stations should have been.

The huge doors closed barely a foot behind him, leaving him completely exposed to the new threat.

"The Games are over, Itsu..." Peerc told him sarcastically. "Or should I call you, Shartae?"

Ron did not respond. The watching crowds of adoring fans were gone out in the open air, but oddly enough, the mednaut still hovered at his side.

"You see," Peerc continued, "the protection you were granted while competing in the Games is now over as well...and since you did not claim immunity for your own world, you are awarded none. You are simply a wanted fugitive once again, and these soldiers are here to collect you.

"We could not have hoped for a better resolution to your particular...situation. You being here on our homeworld...all alone...is almost too good to be true."

Ron gazed up at the giant warrior with an expression of pure apathy, which immediately got Peerc's insides churning. That huge warrior was the survivor of thousands of battles, and had seen his share of pride, guile, bravery, and fear in the face of certain death. But the little human before him was demonstrating none of those sentiments. It was as if he was absolutely certain of some oversight that would deliver him.

"What makes you think I am here all alone?" Ron asked lightly.

Peerc knew he had two strike teams standing at his back, yet his eyes instantly flashed across the scene as if he'd just been told he was surrounded by a vastly superior force.

Ron's confidence in his partner was beyond comprehension, and he could never have explained it to another living soul. He knew absolutely, that Cache would never have allowed him to land on that planet without an exfiltration strategy. Too, he'd heard the slightest, yet unmistakable, sound of an approaching aircraft. It was far off to the west, and high in the atmosphere, but it was there...and it was coming fast!

At that instant, Peerc suddenly snapped his head to the west. A report was streaming into his subdural com-link from a frantic operator, and it was not good news.

"Reaper Goff! Get to safety immediately!" the fellow on the other end was telling him. "We have an inbound craft headed straight for you and it blew through our defense net like it wasn't even there!"

Peerc was a warrior through and through however, and he stood his ground for another few litas, defiant and unwilling to retreat.

The ship that was headed their way was a ball of fire by then, its forward section incinerating the air molecules as it streaked through the atmosphere at high Mach, and it would be on them in mere moments.

Every head was staring at it by then.

Peerc spun back around to face Ron with an open mouth, ready to give the order to kill him...but that command could not be made.

The tip of Ron's sword was resting lightly at his throat.

The Reaper thought quickly. If he made a move to attack, or ordered his men to fire, he was a dead man. He'd seen what that little human could do with a blade. If he stayed where he was though, he would be a dead man anyway, because even though he didn't know how, he knew that whatever was coming was coming for Shartae.

"Order your men to drop their bows and run to the forest!" Ron told him, his eyes as hard as the steel he held. "Do it, or you will all die here with me!"

Peerc considered his options once more. He was a man of great physical power, tremendous fame and influence, and unyielding pride.

In a move that was lightning quick, he snatched his dagger from its scabbard at his waist.

The blade made it halfway to its target before the shadow-blade severed his spine.

In that instant, Ron heard the report of ninety-eight crossbows loosing their missiles, but he was already on the move.

Ron banked on the neural suppressor a great deal in that tiny blink of time, and leaped over to stand directly behind Peerc's enormous figure, propping him up as best he could.

The arrows rained down upon him and his lifeless shield in a torrent of wood and steel, and even though Peerc's body fell to the ground with easily forty shafts protruding from it, Ron still stood.

He was not unscathed by any measure, his body now adorned with ten new flesh wounds and four arrows firmly implanted, but he brandished his bloodied sword at the horde of Kreete soldiers nonetheless, as if he welcomed the fight.

That was not to be however, because before they could reload, the streaking ship was upon them.

FAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM! FAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!

Two powerful blasts erupted with so much force that the entire Kreete army of two Strike Teams were physically blown from their feet. The shuttles that had delivered them to the museum were completely obliterated in a mere blink of time as their shields could do nothing to protect them. Half a lita afterward, that streaking aerial death-merchant exploded as well, far off over the ocean to the east.

The soldiers began scrambling to their knees a few moments later, their ears ringing madly, and fumbled about to check on one another. Those closest to the blasts were dead, but most of them had survived. Half a bort later, one of them remembered the fugitive and spun about to find him, and that move triggered many more.

The ground where Ron had stood was empty though. Only the body of their former champion was within sight, prone on the grass.

Each of the leaders the Strike Teams dispatched his men to fan out and find their quarry, but they never did. It was as if he'd simply disappeared.

No one noticed that the mednaut too was missing.

### Chapter Fifty-six

### It's Over

"Welcome back," a voice in the darkness said. It was a soft, feminine, lilting vocalization that was pure music to Ron's ears.

He smiled even though he felt absolutely horrible, and then his good eye adjusted to the dim confines of a ship...and not just any ship...it was the Raulden super-ship; the _Darlile_...and Cache's beaming grin was lighting up the cabin.

She was standing a few steps away, just in case he didn't immediately recognize her, since he still held his naked sword, but when she saw the twinkle in his good eye she went to him quickly.

She started to give him a strong hug, but she'd been watching and knew all too well that he was in a very sad, battered state, so she just hovered close, her hands reaching up to rest on his broad chest gently. She lightly brushed the still protruding arrow and her heart lurched for his suffering.

"My God, it's good to see you, Cache," he told her warmly, almost too overwhelmed to believe she was there.

"You too, Darling," she returned.

She was almost too overwhelmed as well, to finally have him back with her, but she was a brilliant, astute person who could masterfully stay her emotions at such poignant times.

"Mednauts!" she spoke sharply into the air, and then she guided Ron over to the medical repair station built into the ship and laid him down.

Four cybernetic medical technicians instantly took over where the last one...the one on the planet...had left off.

"Those two ships that attacked the Kreete..."

"Neefretic fighter drones. You may recall a certain encounter with them on your trip to Earth. Jazz provided them for the diversion we needed."

Ron wanted to speak with Cache about a million things, but he could already feel his consciousness fading as the robot doctors administered their tools of repair...the first being a powerful sedative.

"That mednaut was a portal probe?" he asked before his eyes shut.

"Yes," she replied sweetly, whispering in his ear.

"But the Kreete will capture it and,"

"Fear not, my love," she told him, foregoing her former wish to hide her true feelings from the man she adored, "it has already self-destructed. The technology is safe."

"Nice!" he hissed in a breathy release of air, and then he was out.

Eight dactrais later:

Ron awakened in the pitch black confines of his cabin in the _Darlile,_ not knowing where he was or how long he'd been out, but he immediately grinned as wide as he'd ever done before. There wasn't the slightest hint of pain reporting to his brain...until he sat up that is...but he grinned all the more at that too. It was just stiff joints and muscles, and he recognized the difference right away.

The lights burst into operation when he moved, and he immediately rejoiced when he could see perfectly again out of both eyes. The loss of his sight...even only one side...had really concerned him before his rescue. He could breathe smoothly and deeply again too, and that was another monumental boon. A quick check of his extremities gave him even more reasons to smile, finding all his prior ailments fully repaired.

After sitting up for a few litas, he also realized that the ship was in transoptic flight...from the soft humming sound of the NOVA-drive. He wore a full-body gravity suit so he could move freely, and so that's exactly what he did.

After a quick visit to the sanitizer, Ron stepped out of his room and headed forward.

Cache was seated in the pilot's seat, but had instructed the _Darlile_ to alert her to his awakening, so she jumped up and raced aft, meeting him in the mid-cabin.

She didn't even attempt to quell her exuberance that time, and leaped right into his arms, wrapping herself around him and squeezing with all she had. She didn't say a word, but the shaking and quaking of her sobs spoke volumes.

Ron stood there like a statue, returning her embrace with so much joy he couldn't speak for a long while either. He just absorbed her emotional release and enjoyed the wet kisses to his neck and ear.

Finally, Cache pulled back. Her eyes were welled heavily with tears, and in zero-G they had nowhere to fall. She wiped them with one hand while Ron continued to hold her against him, not showing the slightest annoyance or impatience with her.

"I have missed you," she told him softly. Her violet eyes were blazing with fiery energy.

"No more than I missed you," he replied in earnest, his own gaze charged as well.

They just stared into one another's eyes for over a bort before Ron's stomach growled louder than a tiger.

Cache burst out laughing. "I recognize that sound!" she blurted.

Ron then sat her back on her feet and they went straight to the galley.

Just as Ron got his meal however, a new sound made his brow furrow. He turned his head away from his raised fork and then froze...his mouth still open.

Barely five strides away stood a woman. She was petite and well-proportioned, and the expression on her face was one of total and complete disbelief.

Seeing both of them staring at each other with their mouths agape made Cache chuckle, which caught Ron's attention, so he turned to her. He said nothing, but his face asked the obvious question.

"Ron, this is Arsisi. Arsisi, this is Ron Allison...Itsu of Caron...Shartae the Invincible."

Arsisi immediately dropped to her knees and bowed her head all the way to the floor.

"My Lord," she chirped.

Ron was taken aback even more at that and regarded Cache again, still speechless and still holding his fork six inches from his mouth.

Cache just winked at him and said, "She is a fan."

Ron obviously knew there must be a great deal more to the story than that, but he didn't press it right away. He turned back to the woman.

"Please, Arsisi," he told her gently, "won't you join us?"

The young woman shuddered at his words, still not able to believe that she was free. She looked up timidly and saw Ron smile at her and motion for her to sit with them, and she nearly swooned.

"She was a slave on the _Confarii_...the communications ship that broadcast the Games," Cache explained.

Confusion was all over Ron's face.

"She was the one who alerted me to what was truly happening in the Games. She warned me when the Gaming Commission went hunting for me because I'd won so much money betting on you. She alerted me when your first transport ship was sabotaged, and warned me about the last venue's change so I could arm you. She even provided me the codes to break into their feed at the conclusion of the event to keep them from simply killing you."

"Wow!" Ron said, greatly impressed because he understood the tremendous risk she'd taken. "In that case," he added, dropping his fork and rising, "I would offer my deepest thanks and ask a humble request."

Arsisi stared at him in wonder.

"Would you please honor me with your company, Arsisi?" he asked, stooping slowly and taking her hand in his. He then urged her to her feet and guided her over to the table, pulling out her chair and beckoning that she accept it.

She really didn't quite know what to do then. She'd never had anyone swap positions with her like that. And here was the most famous, glorious, awesome man in the galaxy playing the servant. She quivered with elation as she accepted his generous offering.

Ron got her a plate of food and then they all began the long story, told from each one's perspective.

Ron followed along with Cache's tale, and felt her frustration and angst, but too, he heard the excitement as well. She had started out so many cycles ago merely wanting to travel to new worlds, meet new people, and explore the galaxy...and even though it was hardly the perfect scenario, he could tell that she'd been exhilarated by it.

"How did you know about Isleff?" Ron inquired, wanting that little hole in his perspective filled.

"Who?" Cache replied, clearly ignorant of the man.

"The assassin who'd been sent to kill me on Kreete...that very first night."

No recognition at all.

"He told me where to find the pack you'd planted in the Sumachi tree."

"Oh," she finally said. "That woman...Jazz...told me she had a way to get a message to you 'on planet', so I told her where to send you."

Ron then turned to Arsisi. "Did you know about the plot to have me assassinated?"

"No, my Lord...that is...Ron. My master had no knowledge of it as far as I am aware."

"Huh! Well, I guess it all worked out in the end."

The billots drifted by as they marveled at each other's tale, and it concluded with Cache explaining how she rescued Arsisi from the _Confarii_.

"It was so silly and simple that I almost do not believe it worked. The dactrai before the final event began; I merely packaged a portal probe into a container and shipped it to the _Confarii._ It was labeled as a recreational beverage that Maice Lorr preferred. The instant you touched the scepter, when Maice was arguing with everyone over the com, Arsisi went to the cargo hold under the pretense of preparing her master's meal and released it as soon as she was alone. Then she followed the identification instructions that it requested and transported to the _Darlile_. Once she was safely aboard, I sent the probe to the bulk waste disposal center where it began its self-destruct cycle. In less than a billot it was nothing more than a shell with its base compounds pooling inside. The usable material was no doubt recycled, and the rest was jettisoned into the first star the ship passed.

Ron smiled at his little blonde friend and shook his head in disbelief...but then another thought leaped into his memory.

"Oh, crap! What about Fraidze?" he shouted in fear and worry. "I left him on the..."

Cache gripped his nearest hand with both of hers.

"Fear not, Ron," she told him with calm reassurance. "The moment you defeated Grayle, I broke into the _Vastoria_ 's com and ordered him to your quarters. Once there, I had Aanlis open the same portal we used to deliver you to your room before the last event, and had him step through to Rauld. She transported him to the surface outside Gammone. He is safe there, with food, water, and a detailed explanation about what to expect. He is now awaiting our arrival."

"You are truly amazing," he told her, reaching out and enveloping her dainty hands with his large one.

He broke his gaze with Cache when he detected Arsisi watching them closely, and turned to her, sitting back again.

"So, what's next for you, Arsisi?"

She was still very surprised that anyone would speak to her with genuine concern about her life, so she froze for a few litas, then gulped her drink down and regarded Ron.

"Cache said that I can go to her planet and be safe...until we figure out what's next."

"Yes," Cache added, "Arsisi has lived in space her entire life and so has never been on a planet. I think it would suit her best to be acclimated to that kind of experience on a totally peaceful world. Also, the lighter gravity of Rauld will be easier to get used to."

Ron nodded and smiled at their guest. She was about to embark on a tremendous adventure she never saw coming only a few santaris ago, but that seemed totally okay with her.

"How far out are we?" Ron inquired then, not having even thought of it until then. He was too busy just reveling in the ability to breathe free air again.

"Tomorrow evening we will begin the breaking phase," Cache replied.

They spent the remainder of that dactrai talking and exercising. Ron worked out the kinks and soreness with Cache right at his side. Arsisi had already picked up on the attraction she had for the might warrior, and so spent a good amount of time watching out the forward viewer.

Even with all the time she'd lived in the different ships, she'd rarely been given the opportunity to gaze at the cosmos. She found it immensely beautiful.

As that dactrai came to a close, after Ron had showered and was ready to retire, he sat in his pilot seat relaxing and just watching the heavens. Cache took her turn in the only sanitizer aboard and then padded softly up to tell him good night. Arsisi was already asleep in Cache's quarters in a fold-out bed. (They were sharing because there were only two staterooms in the _Darlile._ )

She drifted quietly up behind Ron and slipped her arms around his neck, taking a look outside. He'd heard her approach, but barely turned his head. His mind was elsewhere. She sensed that he was in a solemn mood, so she kissed his neck and squeezed him.

"Good night, Ron," she whispered, and then she headed back.

After a moment, Ron set off after her, and stopped her near the galley area by slipping his hand in hers and gently pulling her around. It surprised her enough to make her jump and squeak out a little chirp, but she beamed up at him nonetheless.

"Hey there," she said, standing very close to his much more massive bulk, and craning her neck straight up to look at him.

Ron gazed back at her affectionately, trying to gather himself to broach the subject he'd been contemplating for a good while. She was absolutely breathtaking, standing there. She never wore makeup, and would never need it. Her features were so exquisite, so warm and full of life...so feminine...that it nearly took his breath away. She wore her long, straight, bright blonde hair braided at the moment, with a weighted clip to keep it hanging down her back in the weightless environs of the ship, and it added to her incredibly demur and alluring appearance.

"Cache," he began, but then he couldn't find the words. He just looked into her magnificent, violet eyes, and a surge of emotion welled up inside him, stifling the speech he'd prepared. Instead, he slid down to one knee, and then to the other, very slowly...his eyes never breaking their connection with hers. When he knelt at her feet, his large, callused hands resting lightly on her hips with his fingertips touching around her tiny waist, he was almost eye to eye with her.

She remained silent...transfixed by that phenomenal man and whatever it was he wanted to tell her. Of course, she couldn't suppress the trembling of her body, being in such proximity of the love of her life.

"Thank you, Cache," he finally said to her...but it was so much more than words. She felt that right off.

"For what, my love?"

Ron smiled at her then. She was so modest that it was funny.

"Thank you for...everything! For turning over heaven and earth to find me. For risking your life, your ship, and so much more to avenge me. For every time I had the tools I needed to stay alive and keep the insane hope of victory from imploding. For rescuing us when we would certainly have died in space. For accomplishing the miracle of getting me off Kreete when I was truly at my life's end."

"That last thing really was a very clever plan, I must say," she told him then, winking at him sweetly.

"And thank you so much, Cache Kuar, for giving me the fantastic, surprising, unimaginable gift of my daughter, Sheyah."

Cache's smile turned at that point to a different one. It went from loving and adoring, to and explosion of elation he hadn't seen in cycles, and her eyes burst with tears of joy. Her small hands grasped his square jaw lightly, with waves of emotion vibrating through them.

"It is my greatest honor, Ron," she told him as her face turned bright pink, "to give you that gift...to have you as her father. I love you so much. I..."

She never completed that statement though, because the man she'd linked her heart to, all those santaris ago, crushed her to him in a long, passionate kiss. That embrace lasted for several borts, and ended only when he lay her down upon his bed. She never even felt him lift her from the deck and carry her to his room.

When the door had sealed them off in complete privacy, Ron broke free of her and fairly ripped the shirt from his back, the heat of his gaze burning down at her. She then lay beneath him panting, and reached up to remove her own clothing, but his hand stayed her move.

"No," he ordered her softly, yet sternly...and for just a lita, she thought he'd changed his mind...but then...

"I want to do it," he told her in his deepest, sexiest tone.

At that, Cache's heart rate accelerated.

Ron then touched his large fingers to the neck of her sleepwear, releasing the magnetic clasp, and then he peeled back the fabric extremely slowly, his lips following that separation as he went. Cache threw her arms back over her head and rejoiced in his sensual, tactile play, but her body could not relax as it jumped and twitched uncontrollably.

Ron found that movement maddeningly desirable. And when he exposed one of her breasts, finding it pursed to the point of breaking through the cloth that had held it, he had to force himself to be gentle. As it disappeared into his mouth, Cache arched her body powerfully, pressing herself harder against his lips and grunted out an explosion of lust.

While still suckling her ripened bosom, Ron stripped her to the waist, freeing her to lock her fingers in his raven hair and pull to him even tighter, and he smiled. He gave equal attention to them both before moving on, and Cache began to writhe beneath his caresses with rapidly increasing fervor.

Ron swept the remainder of her garment aside with one deft move and kissed her navel, and then the flatness of her belly, and then the crease of her thighs...and then...

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" she screamed when his mouth engulfed her. She bucked and gasped and pulled at him harder...her climax nearly instantaneous.

Ron cupped her little bottom in his huge hands and rode out her spasms, using his tongue as a sensual key to unlock her long pent up desire.

He suckled and cajoled her nether area for almost a bort before she could regain control and speak again, still gulping in huge gasps of air.

"Come inside me, Ron," she ordered, pulling at his shoulders frantically.

Ron raised up and regarded his luscious partner, swiftly shedding his trousers as she beckoned him with open arms.

As soon as he kicked off his pants however, neither he nor Cache had anything left on them to generate a pull toward the floor of the ship, so they both began to float.

That might have been a novelty to talk about at any other time, but at that moment, Ron just grappled with his overheated partner and went with it.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...ROOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNN!" Cache screamed again when their bodies finally coupled completely.

Zero gravity was nothing new to either of them, each having spent santaris of time in the _Darlile_ , showering and moving about the sanitizer while nude, but this was a completely new and wonderful experience.

Ron clung to Cache's petite figure firmly, while she interlaced her legs with his, and they twisted and thrashed as one, sometimes bumping up against the wall, and then the floor, and then the ceiling. (Luckily the _Darlile_ was equipped with padding on all surfaces)

The effort of staying locked together while still enjoying the slipping and sliding motions of the act further enhanced the experience, and so in only another few borts, Ron heard his name grunted out once more in an ecstatic release of air.

That panicked expulsion coaxed Ron past the tipping point he was battling to control, and so he released his own explosions of rapture deep inside her trembling, quaking figure that gripped him with all her strength.

When the heat between the two lovers at last began to fade, Ron eased up on his crushing embrace, but Cache wasn't quite ready for that.

"Not yet, Ron," she said between huffs for oxygen. "It has been so long."

Ron did not attempt to overrule her, but simply crushed her to him once more as they floated about the dark room. Borts went by while the lovers clung to one another, and Cache relished every lita of it.

Finally though, they separated, and then Cache began to giggle. The adrenaline rush of the event was fading and it made her a bit giddy.

The lights of Ron's room hadn't gone out completely, but were at a low setting, so they were still able to see. When Cache's feet reached a wall, she gently propelled herself toward the door and then bounced about the cabin until she reached the sanitizer entrance. Once there, she looked back at Ron, who was floating in a reclined position, very pleased with himself. She held the door frame in one hand and beckoned him with her index finger...a sultry gaze upon her face.

Ron grinned at that, his mischievous nature showing through, and kicked off in her direction.

They enjoyed a long, hot shower together that eventually ended with Cache pinned up against the wall and grunting out her sexual delight yet again.

### Chapter Fifty-seven

### The Future

Cache Kuar awakened in the thickly muscled arms of her dream lover, and smiled. Ron was already awake and he smiled back.

"I have dreamed of this for so long, Ron, that I cannot even remember anymore," she told him softly, her eyes gleaming with pride and satisfaction.

"I'm sorry that it took so long, Cache. Maybe if I'd've known about..."

Cache reached out quickly and covered his lips with her fingers.

"Do not spoil this moment, my darling, with any words of regret. I am simply too happy for that. You are here now. We are together."

Cache then pressed herself forward and kissed him warmly. "It is perfect," she said after.

They stayed cuddled together for a while, but couldn't remain so forever, so Cache finally rolled herself out of bed and slipped back into her nightwear, becoming grounded again immediately.

Ron tossed away the blanket that had held them in place during the night and he too got dressed. They strolled leisurely out of the bedroom and Cache took her turn in the sanitizer while Ron joined Arsisi at the table.

They chatted about the life she'd known and about the places she'd been to aboard the _Confarii_. And completely opposed to how slavery typically goes, she'd had lived a fairly safe and quiet existence, but she was extremely excited about her future.

Ron spoke calmly with her and let her do most of the talking, allowing her to express herself more than she'd ever done, and she enjoyed it tremendously. Cache showed up a bit later and relieved him while he took a quick shower. She had her hair braided in a long plait again and wore one of her more revealing outfits that received a broad grin and a devilish wink from Ron.

Arsisi followed Ron with her eyes until he vanished behind the door.

"You are a very lucky woman," she told Cache.

"Thank you. I think so too."

They all spent the day with exercise, some instructional information for Arsisi, to prepare her for her new home, and a good amount of rest.

When it came time for the decel period, Arsisi was forced to retire into a cryo-chamber, to allow her to survive the braking procedure the _Darlile_ would go through. It was a common thing on all the spacecrafts she'd been on, so it didn't alarm her at all.

Cache and Ron then made their way to the cockpit and climbed into their seats.

"Ready?" Cache asked of her partner.

At a nod from Ron, she disengaged the NOVA-drive and initiated the decel.

From there, they sat facing backward while the ship ran reverse thrust for the following sixteen billots. They talked about a great many things, until finally the inevitable topic arose...Josylinia Gitove.

"Have you decided what you are going to do about Josy, Ron? From here on, I mean."

Ron was still deeply conflicted, and paused a long while before he answered. He'd weighed his choices a million times and knew that whatever way he went, he would enjoy a wonderful life with a gorgeous woman who adored him completely. He also knew that he could bond with either Josy or Cache equally well, and so his own personal future was a win no matter the choice. The problem was how he could possibly break the heart of either fantastic woman.

His fatherly duties stepped in though, and steered him to a commitment that would ensure his relationship with his child. In his mind, that tiny person sealed his decision.

"Well," he began, "I don't have any idea how I'm going to tell her, but..."

"I think you should marry Josy," Cache blurted out, cutting him off. She'd waited until she heard what her heart had longed to hear for so many santaris...that he would choose her...before stepping in and voicing what she truly believed deep in her heart.

"What?" he asked in total disbelief. For just a moment it felt as if a grenade had gone off in his brain. "I thought we...but you...what?"

Cache couldn't turn her head due to the inertial forces locking her in a fixed position, so she flicked her fingers across the console and brought up a "Mirror transfer" setting. It split the view screen and generated an exact replica of her in front of Ron, and vice versa. That way each of them could look directly at the other. The com system even transferred their voices so that it would come from the image before them and not the person beside them.

"Ron," she said gently, staring right into his eyes. Her face was filled with warmth and adoration. She wasn't teary-eyed or overly emotional. "I want you to know that I love you completely."

"Then why would you...?"

"Please let me say what I must, my darling," she told him patiently. "I have thought about this for almost two entire cycles...since I first found out about you and Josylinia."

Ron knew her well enough to understand that he needed to be quiet and listen...really listen. So that is what he did.

"The words I said back at the waterfall cove...and the pledge I swore to you...were all absolutely true, to the very depths of my soul...and still are. I want you to know that."

Ron nodded, but said nothing.

"I am yours, Ron...period. Anytime, day or night, and anywhere you or I might be, my heart belongs to you...and to Sheyah, our perfect little angel.

"However, my love, Josy is better for you than I am."

Ron was so stunned that his mouth hung open for a moment, but he said nothing, so Cache continued.

"You see, she and I have spoken about this many times, and it has forced me to consider this inordinately complex situation from more than just my own, selfish, emotional position."

Ron could not have been more surprised. She and Josy had discussed it?

"Because of me and the plight of the Raulden people, your life was ripped from you and you were literally thrown into a galactic conflict. Josy however, cast her own life into the gravest peril simply because she is such a compassionate soul. She asked nothing of you whatsoever, and slowly, gently coaxed you back from the brink of death and into the world of the living. Your time with her even restored your humanity.

"I know that you love me very much...possibly as much as you love her, but your time with me has always been laced with wild adventure, with anxiety of a thousand sorts, with plots and schemes, with tremendous, terrible loss...and with danger. Since the dactrai we first met, I cannot recall a period of more than a single torjourne that was free of some onerous or somber condition. You cannot survive a life like that. A warrior cannot remain at war forever. It will drive you mad.

"A life with Josy is at the opposite end of the spectrum. With Josy, you can find peace. Her home is a place of ultimate sanctuary, even on that hostile, primitive world. The problems there are more definable, personal, and straight forward. The Caronians treat you like a king...as well they should for what you did for them...but since you are not any actual ruler, there is no one trying to subvert you or overthrow you for position. You are free to live the life you choose.

"Ron, with Josy you can have the family you should have had before you met me. You can be a husband and father, just like you always dreamed of.

"Now I must confess that it has been extremely difficult for me to find my way to this point and admit it, Darling. And to send you off to another now is almost too foreign a concept to be true, but it is the stark reality of our situation."

He said nothing for a long time, his mind spinning and his thoughts jumbled.

"But...what about Sheyah?" he finally muttered, still fighting to track her logic.

"I have not changed my mind concerning her. We will reside in our little cottage, just as we planned, and she will have access to you and to the Gitoves...as well as to Rauld of course...at any time."

"You could do that, Cache? You could watch me be with Josy even though you are in love with me?"

"Well, I do not know how much 'watching' I would do," she admitted dryly, "since I am extremely busy with so many new friends we've pledged to help all across the Empire, but I do believe I can accept it."

They sat in silence for several borts before Cache cheerily began a new topic. That was a bit of a jolt for Ron though, because his head was still swimming from the previous one.

"And since I have you pinned down, I need to tell you about another matter that may be a bit of a shock to you."

Ron's whirling thoughts congealed quickly, knowing she was about to send him spinning again. Cache never underestimated the impact her news would provoke.

"I spoke with Angela...in person."

"Uh...huh..." Ron acknowledged. "And...?" he asked, afraid of what she might be about to say.

Cache proceeded to explain the circumstances surrounding how Angela had found out the truth of who he was, and went over their visit and conversation.

"You will have to speak with her, Ron. I assume you know that. Now that your existence is out in the open, she will not be able to move on until you do."

That got the situation with Josy out of the foreground of his thoughts, but slammed a whole new worry there. What would he possibly tell her?

"It really is not as bad as it seems, Ron," Cache said sweetly. "She already knows that your abduction was completely out of your control. Your parents and I have explained that to her. And she has had time to adjust to the fact that you are incapable of remaining on Earth...that there really is no other option. Right now, I think she just needs to see you...to talk with you...to get the closure that you both crave so badly.

"I sent word to Earth that you were safe again while you were recuperating in the Flarinca tank, so they will be expecting some communication with you soon."

Ron nodded again, still at a loss for words.

They sat in silence again until they passed so close to a red giant star that they entered the photosphere, and that sparked Ron back into animation.

"So tell me about the future plans. I think we owe the people of Benoi our assistance, as well as Bart's, Fraidze's and Dex's planets. Don't you think?"

"Absolutely," Cache concurred. "In fact, we have already begun working on plans for infiltrating the humans' planets. The problem though, is that the world of Benoi is all the way on the other side of the Empire, and we have no way to contact them until we can get a relay probe somewhere in their region. Ordice is the real mystery however. We do not know exactly where it is, and know almost nothing about the race who live there.

"The Kreete apparently either do not concern themselves with that world, or keep it secret deliberately. In any case, Aanlis and her associates have begun brainstorming ways to make contact. So far though, we only communicate with the Ordiceans when they can arrange it."

The _Darlile_ arrived at Gammone to another hero's welcome early the following dactrai, and the next phase of their lives began.

Ron and Cache went out and met with Fraidze, which relieved his growing anxiety to no end. They told him the story of how Ron had gotten involved with Rauld in the first place, and what the Rauldens' part in the whole business had been and would continue to be.

They also discussed plans that concerned him, starting with a nice peaceful vacation there on the surface of Rauld for an undetermined period. The Cnauts had constructed a simple, modest house beside a lake where he could explore and wander at his leisure, and that satisfied nearly all his immediate wishes. He'd been locked up for so long, unable to even see the sky, except for during the Games, that he told Cache to take her time about his relocation. He could wait.

Cache used the later part of that dactrai to go to Caron, explain that Ron was safe but would be delayed a day or two, and gather Sheyah. Josy was so relieved that he was alright that she didn't even balk at another postponement of their reunion.

Cache rejoined Ron with his daughter and together they played the happy little family for an entire dactrai with no interference.

Ron didn't let Sheyah out of his reach for the entire time, feeding her, cleaning her, and playing with her. She even slept on his broad chest when her sleep cycle swept in on her. Ron was just amazed by that little person.

The following morning, when Earth had rotated to midday at the Allisons' house, Cache, Ron, and Sheyah stepped into his boyhood home to a much larger crowd than he'd anticipated. Ron's aunt, uncle, and sister, were all there with his parents and Angela and Derek...as well as Regina Millson who Jessica had invited over. (Frank Denk and Rhena were not in the area)

It was a bit more crowded then Ron had envisioned for his reunion with his wife, but too, he realized she would be more at ease having the family around, and not be totally alone with him. After all, she was having a difficult time with the entire "impossible" situation.

It was a long few moments when their eyes finally met, each knowing who the other was this time, and it took Derek to break the ice.

He had been playing with his grandfather when the portal opened, but when everyone got to their feet to welcome the guests, he scampered off and hid behind his mother's skirt...always shy around strangers. However, when the long silence dragged on, he sneaked a peek around his mother and saw who it was that came in...and then his eyes lit up.

"Daddy!" he cried with a huge grin, and immediately ran to Ron.

Cache just beamed.

The two Raulden ambassadors answered questions and visited for the next three Earth days; traveling back to Rauld each night for everyone's comfort.

Angela and Derek had moved back to Westlake after finding out that Ron was still alive, hoping they would have the opportunity to see him and talk to him...and give him the opportunity to be involved in Derek's life, no matter how limited.

That had made the Allisons ecstatic of course. They had access to their grandson again, as well as to Angela whom they loved as dearly as their own daughters.

Sam was gone much of the time due to his flying duties, and so he felt much better also, about having someone nearby to watch over Angie and her son. (She neglected to tell him about Ron though)

Everyone marveled at Sheyah too, and she was passed about nonstop to amaze each of them with her ability to speak so clearly while still appearing so tiny and immature.

When the subject of the Games came up, Kurt begged Cache to allow them to see the competition, and so she obliged him...although she warned them all about the graphic nature of some of the events. Angela stayed glued to Ron's side, and Cache gave them as much space as she could in the crowded home.

She held his hand, feeling the density of his new skin, and gazed at him long and often; still unsure about how she should react to him. He was so different, yet when he looked back at her, he was so familiar.

She even watched the Games with everyone else, and was mesmerized at the aliens and the planets...and she blushed heavily when Ron competed naked in the opening event. But too, she did not miss the incredible physique he now had, and that made her temperature rise in a far different way.

They all clapped and cheered and congratulated Ron at every turn, but when the danger ramped up in the Field Hockey event, Angela pulled Ron aside for a long, private walk around town. It gave him time to answer many of her questions about his last trip to Earth...and about how close he'd come to surprising her that morning outside her house, which she confessed would probably have sent her into shock, had he managed it. He even explained his attempt to secure her and Derek's financial status with his visit to the diamond merchant in El Paso as well.

"You mean that money is real?" she blurted at the news, totally shocked once again.

Ron just grinned and nodded.

"I thought it was some kind of glitch," she confessed. "You know...from all the damage and chaos in the big cities."

"Well," Ron added, "I guess it's kind of a moot point now...with the collapse of nearly every market on the exchange."

"Yeah," she admitted, "but things are returning to normal faster than anyone could have predicted. I'm sure it will all work out. And thank you, Ron...for that...for everything."

She laid her hand on his arm then, just like when they were dating, and it felt so feathery light that he smiled and placed his on top. He truly missed her an extraordinary amount.

"Your friend, Cache, told me you want me to marry Sam," Angela said to him softly, as if afraid to broach the subject.

Ron looked down at her and nodded, but the expression he had was not one of joy for her having found another. It was more a look of tension.

Angela's eyes darted back and forth at his, reading that strained look.

"You could just give me away that easy?" she asked, her own face suddenly drawn tight and her eyes pleading at him.

Ron tensed instantaneously, his hands snapping around her delicate shoulders so fast she didn't have a chance to even see the move...but he managed to grip her lightly enough to not injure her. Still, it felt like she was locked in a living vise.

"Easy?" he replied, his face flushing so dark that it shocked her. "Angie...if you only knew how close I came to slaying that man right in front of you, with the whole world watching, just because he dared to even touch you...I...I..." Ron had to slam his eyes shut at that, recalling the nearly overpowering surge of anguish and rage he'd felt out on the tarmac of the Colorado Springs airport.

He kept his lids clamped tight for a good ten seconds before he could reign in his emotions once more. Then, with a long, deep breath, he released his hold and gazed back down at his young wife...his eyes filled with defeat and sorrow, and his hands hanging limply at his sides.

"I just want you to have a good life...one filled with joy and love. And since it can't be with me, then I have to accept that it will be with him. I..."

Before Ron could say another word, Angela leaped at him, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips to his with fiery passion. Ron caught her easily, holding her against him gently and returning her affections for the next few minutes. It was exactly what he'd dreamed it would be.

Finally though, Angela pulled back from him and laid her head on his huge, rounded shoulder, her feet still swinging freely beneath her.

The man she clung to was gorgeous, exciting, and immensely powerful. (She could tell that by the way he held her as easily as he held his infant daughter) His deep voice was captivating and his gray eyes were absolutely entrancing, but he was not her Ron. His body felt very warm against her, but also, he felt like he was made of some kind of pliable stone. At that instant, Angela knew without a doubt that they could never go back.

"I want that for you too, my love," she whispered to him. "I truly do!"

Ron set her down a few moments later and they continued their walk, hand in hand.

They ended up at the high school where they'd first met, and wandered about the campus for quite a while. They shared their pure and unspoiled emotional ties to one another, and confessed that no one would ever replace them in their hearts. Their time together had been cut dramatically short, but it was still alive in their minds and in the deepest recesses of their souls.

They then spoke of their future plans freely, devoid of any more words of guilt or regret.

### Chapter Fifty-eight

### The Next Phase

Ron caught up with Cache at her quarters early the next dactrai and they walked to the cubic transporter together with Ron holding his tiny tot in his arms.

"How much time do we have before our next mission?" Ron asked his petite partner.

"I really do not know, Ron. We have a tremendous amount of work to coordinate, confidential sources to confirm and organize, and about a million other details to sort out before we will go 'hands on' again. I would guess half a cycle at least."

Ron smiled grandly at that. Just like Fraidze, he could use a long vacation. With a deep sigh of relief, he went back to tickling his little girl.

She cooed and laughed at him as he played with her constantly, but when Cache announced their destination to the computer, Sheyah lit up with curiosity.

"Where are we going, Daddy?" she queried in a beautiful version of Earth English.

Ron grinned at her as if she'd just done something completely impossible...and of course to an earthling, her ability to speak while still appearing only three months old was. He glanced at Cache who was smiling back at him with incredible pride. Then he returned his attention to his daughter.

"Well, Sheyah, we're going home for a while."

Her hands immediately began clapping and she burst out in a giggly laugh. "Are we going to see Josy?"

Again Ron glanced Cache's way, but that time it was to check on whether that hurt his lovely partner's feelings.

Cache set his mind at ease however, by leaning forward and tickling Sheyah. "Yes, Little Darling, we are going to see Josy, and Mishea, and all the Gitoves...and the farm and the animals."

"Yeaaaahhhh!" she squealed with delight.

"She loves Josy and Mishea very much," Cache clarified for Ron, "and even Karne and Larson, which really amazed me, by the way. She just adores the farm life and all the excitement."

Ron was still trying to read Cache's mood concerning this new phase, so his expression remained hesitant, questioning.

Cache knew Ron so well that she picked up on that instantly.

"I do too, Ron," she assured him. "At first I thought I would go insane trying to adjust to the lack of technology, or to the slow pace of life, or to the wide extremes of weather. But actually, I think I like it better than here on Rauld."

"It is too quiet here," Sheyah suddenly interjected, causing Cache to smile and wink at her, and then kiss her little chubby cheek.

"Yes, Sheyah. I think you are correct. The songbirds and the chirping of the insects...the whinnying of the horses and the moaning of the pravorts...the wind in the leaves and the sounds from the river...they all make the entire place feel alive. And the smell of the grass and the flowers and the fireplaces and the cooking are so homey.

"When I first arrived on Caron, I did not think I would ever get used to that nonstop input. But now, I feel that I miss it very much when I am away. It truly is a wonderful life!"

Ron was so surprised that he couldn't speak, so he just wrapped his arm around Cache and drew her into a tight family hug.

They all arrived at the Starflex Transfer Portal station soon afterward and strolled calmly into the vast room. Ron saw Arsisi off to the side. She was being instructed by one of Aanlis's many coworkers. She seemed to be fitting in well, being so familiar with the Kreete's similar systems.

Aanlis met them with a broad grin, holding her arms open for Sheyah. "How is my little niece today?" she asked as Ron passed the child over.

"I am well, Aanlis," Sheyah replied in excellent Raulden.

Ron just shook his head at the marvel of that tiny person. She would likely speak a dozen languages by the time she walked. It really blew his mind.

"We are ready," Aanlis told them after snuggling Sheyah a while.

Ron was growing impatient by then...ready to get going. The more he thought of Josylinia, the greater the pull of his desire for her became. She was like an addiction.

Aanlis handed Sheyah back to Ron and then stepped to her control panel. "Ten litas," she announced.

Ron positioned himself in front of the portal, and Cache took her place beside him. They both grinned at one another. With all the things they'd each been through since leaving Caron so long ago, they were ready for a break.

At the moment the portal blinked into operation however, a commotion began around the other side of the console. It was Arsisi. Something was happening with her. She had suddenly leaped from her chair and backpedaled all the way to the wall, and now she was curled up in a corner, balling and shaking her head.

"No-no-no-no-no," she mumbled, staring at her console as if she'd just seen a ghost. "I thought you said you were against the Triad!"

Cache became very distraught at the sight of her obvious panic and so turned to Ron.

"You go with Sheyah. I will follow in a while, when I find out what is wrong with Arsisi."

"Are you sure?" Ron asked, his face full of trepidation.

"Yes, Ron. You go on. I know you must be dying to see Josy."

Ron instantly pursed his lips.

"And no, I do not mean it in a sarcastic, or petty way...truly, I do not."

She then smiled up at Ron and pressed her small hands firmly on his arm. "She has been waiting for you for over a cycle, Ron. I think that is long enough. Go to her."

Ron gave her a relieved smile and patted her hand. "See you soon?"

"Soon."

"Okay then. Good luck with her."

Cache stepped back and watched Ron disappear to Caron, holding Sheyah wide-eyed in his arms, waving to her. Then she moved off to see about Arsisi.

Everyone had moved back away from her by then, frightened to see anyone acting in that fashion because no one on Rauld ever had cause for such distress.

"Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh...," Cache said to her gently, trying to calm her frantic crying. "Arsisi, what happened? What is wrong?"

Arsisi seemed much relieved to see someone she recognized, so she stopped her blabbering and wiped her eyes.

"That is better, Sweetie. Calm down and tell me what happened."

"I...I...th-th-ought you said you were trying to free worlds from the Triad!" she managed to get out.

Cache was more than a little confused at that.

"Yes, that is correct," Cache replied. "Why would you think otherwise?"

At that point it was Arsisi whose expression showed confusion.

"Then, why are you helping them...even giving them the planet-shield technology that they so desperately want?"

"I...," Cache stumbled, "do not understand. We have no intention of giving them anything, much less our planetary shield."

Arsisi's face screwed up even more at that. "But I saw it...there," she explained, pointing at the console she'd been working from.

Cache got to her feet and went to the station. It was showing the preliminary shipment schedule of the aid they were planning to send off-world.

"This?" she asked.

Arsisi stood and walked timidly over to the console. She confirmed what she'd seen and then nodded her head.

"But this is not for the Triad," Cache told her, still baffled at the misunderstanding. "It is for the people of the planet Ordice."

Arsisi stared at the view screen that showed an artist's rendition of Jazzimeridon overlaid at the top of the document. It had been drawn off of Ron's description of her, since he alone had ever seen her, and it was extremely accurate. Arsisi then regarded Cache. Her face was filled with puzzlement.

"Do you not know who it is that you fight?" she queried to Cache, her eyes alighting on every other person in the room as well, before returning to her blonde host. "She is not Ordicean! She is Theranian. They annihilated the Ordiceans in order to acquire their planet! She is one of the three!"

"The three?" Cache asked in confusion. "What three?"

"The Kreete...the Malicarts...and the Theranians. They are the Triad!"

I hope you will return for the seventh and final episode of A Leap of Fate:

### Destined for War

If you have any questions or comments you wish to convey, you can reach me at the Facebook page; Ronin Dangarth...or email me at ronindangarth@att.net

Sincerely,

G. L. Fontenot

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