Chương 6: Arrival arc

"Starspawn. Some will tell you that they are different from those who live in the Federation. Some will claim that they are barbaric without the wisdom of Toncon to guide them, though the Church of Black Vigil has always maintained that those who do not follow their faith are deserving of respect. The truth, as ever, is simpler. Starspawn are people. Just people. Put the average Federation worker, Toncon priest and Starspawn pirate in a room, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a difference between them.

Even linguistic drift, with the invention of translator technology, is so far from a problem it might as well not exist. So the next time someone asks you why the Starspawn aren't all modified, heavily tattooed freaks, or why a Toncon priest won't flog you for failing to murmur their scripture, remember that there is no difference between them. Not beyond what we make of it." A critique on the rising tensions in the galaxy.

The fist slammed into his shoulder, making him grunt, and Mat shifting his weight, lashing out with a kick. Yon stepped out of the way, pivoting, forcing Mat to follow and thus throw off his balance, but Mat turned with the movement easily. He'd been here ten days now. A week since his first fight, and he honestly couldn't say he had improved much. His frame was still filled with too much fat and too little muscle, his coordination was sloppy and his blows weak.

But balance he could do, no matter that it was power given rather than earned. Bladeslaves, as Yon was fond of reminding him, fought with just about anything. Swords, yes, but also their fists, axes, shields, whips, guns and more. Anything and everything the client might want to see, be that client a single man or a million subscribers. Skill with a single weapon was secondary. More than anything, it was raw experience that made a fighter, and techniques that polished them up.

Yon's hand hooked around his shoulder, his leg swept out, and this time Mat could do nothing as his back impacted the padded floor. Air was forced out of his lungs, but the time where Yon would let him lay there had passed days ago. So he rolled to the side, the memory of a dozen blows urging his movement. That and the experience of two other real fights, both of which he had lost. Any day now the Judge would schedule him for a deathmatch, and mistakes would rapidly come with very permanent consequences.

Mat managed to get to his feet, though no doubt Yon could have stopped him if the man had wanted to. But he didn't, because this was training. And nobody learned by repeatedly being beaten to the ground. Yet Yon pulled back, seemingly satisfied.

"That's enough for today. Your stamina is improving, but you need to work on your flexibility. Do the exercises I showed you." He had been, but Mat saw no need to argue. So instead he rose from his knees to his feet, and saluted like he'd seen some of the others do, hand over fist. Yon snorted, but if Mat wasn't mistaken, there was the tiniest of pleased smiles. Mat shrugged. With little else to do he washed, ate literal slop, and tried to relax for a few hours.

Time was all they had, here, and his body couldn't keep up with twenty four seven training. Not after those first few days, though in hindsight, Yon had gone easy on him. How much difference a week made. Not that he'd learned that much aside from fighting, honestly. Aside from being extraordinarily busy, it was a whole new galaxy to familiarize himself with. Nova did his best, but then computers—even if Nova technically wasn't quite one—were made to store information. The human brain had a much harder time.

Two hours he got, and he was in the middle of mentally debating Nova about the existence of snakes when Reg all but charged into the room, causing Tobi to stick his head over the top bunk. It was also Tobi who spoke.

"What's got your panties in a twist?"

"You're fighting tonight," Reg said, not even glancing at Tobi. Mat stiffened.

"A deathmatch." What was left of his calm fled like a coward, and he very much wanted to join it. Not that he could.

"You said I'd have two weeks."

"The Judge usually gives people two weeks. Either it doesn't like you, or the demand for blood has gone up. Either way, you're fighting, and if you lose…" Mat swallowed, rising to his feet for a reason he couldn't explain.

'Tonight' was hours away.

"If I lose again, I'm fucked." Three for zero, so far. Shit odds for anyone, and while his last match had actually been somewhat even, it had ended with his teeth getting knocked out. Literally. Thank fuck for nanobots and the miraculous healing properties they granted to humanity.

"What the fuck do I do now?" Mat demanded. Tobi shrugged, sympathetic but clearly having nothing to offer. Reg seemed to be in thought.

"I guess I could go back to Yon, squeeze in a few more hours before—" Reg interrupted by moving forward, lightly pushing him into a chair.

"No, no. Exhausting yourself now would be the worst thing you can do. If I had known— It doesn't matter. Deathmatches are usually fought with weapons, and they won't be transwords. I'm not sure exactly what you'll get, but it's best to go with a simple weapon."

"Not a blade?"

"Blades are good," Reg admitted.

"Versatile. But you've barely had any training, and something like an axe, mace or even a spear would be better, assuming you get offered those." Mat stared.

"And if I don't?"

"Then it was nice knowing you," Tobi offered. Reg shot the man a glare, and he rolled back onto his bunk.

"Sorry. But hey, we all went through this. If you live, there's nothing to worry about, because you're alive. And if you die, then there's nothing to worry about, because you're dead." Reg sighed.

"That's… certainly a way to look at it, but he's not wrong. And I know this means nothing, but try to relax, alright? Come, we'll play some poker."

"Don't you have better things to do?" Mat asked, his tone a touch too sharp. Reg didn't seem insulted, but Mat winced all the same.

"Shit, sorry. I didn't mean it like that."

"I know. And you're the thing I'm doing right now, Mat." Tobi snickered, Reg rolled his eyes, and even Mat found himself cracking a smile. Poker, however, failed to distract him. So did stretching, meditation and shadowboxing, though at that point he'd been grasping at straws. And nearly hit Pabol in the face, which would have probably cost him an eye. Time crept by like the scythe of the reaper.

Reg fed him only some slop for dinner, insisting that a full stomach would do nothing but hinder me, and promised to be there afterwards. Which was a nice gesture, assuming he was… assuming he was making it out alive. Jesus Christ. It hit him when he was standing in front of that damned door. The only door. No droid had come to drag him out of bed, this time. They never did, if someone arrived on their own volition.

Mat rarely cared to look at the screen displaying the times a man was scheduled to fight, following Reg's advice of only looking once every morning and evening, but now he cursed himself for it. If he'd missed it, the droid would have come again. The door opened, and thought of making a run for it came and went. There was nowhere to go. So Mat stepped through, bending down to retrieve his juice. And it was just juice, Reg had assured him. No drugs, no liquid courage.

Only a small treat for those about to fight and die for the benefit of the Duras Entertainment Network.

"You've got this," Nova encouraged, standing tall inside his mind.

"We've got training, we've got experience—the kind I can't manufacture from souls, anyway—-and we'll soon have a weapon. There's nothing that can stand in our way." At least one of them was confident. It took a few minutes for the second door to open, and Mat stepped through, nervous to the extreme for what was awaiting him. To his relief, weapons of all kinds decorated the walls. Spears, axes, swords and maces. There was even a shield, though he was only allowed one item. The choice was good.

Yet when he looked upon the next door, the one connection to a labyrinth of hallways, his mind went blank. Because this was actually happening. In a few moments, he would be fighting for his life. Not because he was threatened. Not because it was him or them. He was expected to kill for entertainment, and to do so with weapons that made death slow. Deliberate and brutal. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Numb in both mind and body, his hands moved on their own. Fingers closed around the hilt of a shortsword, double edged and sharp, and disobedient feet moved him towards the last door. It opened when he approached, and like a stranger had puppeted his body, Mat followed the lights. It was a different arena, he was pretty sure. The entrance was wide, and when it opened, four flying drones made lazy loops around the space.

Sand was laid on the floor, and a moment later, the walls flickered to show a stadium around them. Whatever technology that was, it was nearly flawless, though the border seemed purposefully clear. Mat barely noticed it. Instead he looked at his opponent, a short, thin woman of maybe forty years. Some small, primitive part of his mind exhaled in relief, certain of victory. The rest noted that she was clutching a mace, and he realized he was holding a sword. A fucking sword.

The exact thing Reg had warned him not to pick. He stepped inside, and the woman jerked forward like she wanted to run instead. The fear poked his caveman brain again, but so what? Logic told him that terrified people made poor choices, yes, but that they also fought with desperation and a lack of self-preservation. When that mace broke his skull, it wouldn't matter if her hands were shaking, or if his sword was buried in her stomach. There they stood, and Mat watched her like the approach of death.

The woman, likewise, flinched away from him more than not, holding her mace like a lifeline. His own weapon he held limply, letting it almost dangle from his fingers. The room was big. A hundred feet across, maybe, before the screens made it appear ten times that size. The sand felt odd under his feet, and slowly, he undid his boots. The woman didn't rush him, and neither did she copy him.

"This is a deathmatch," a voice announced. The Judge. It sounded more theatrical than usual, like someone hyping up a fight. A… master of ceremony? That sounded fake.

"Here stand two fighters who have taken their first steps onto the legendary path of a bladeslave. Will they be the next Iron Skies? Will they break the legacy of the Flesh Monger? Or will they truly rise, and join Missy Moana and breach the realm of the divine?" A rush of excitement rolled over them, like the stands of his colosseum were actually filled with people. After a long moment, the Judge continued.

"Whatever they will become, only one of them walks out of this room alive. One future, one death. Fight, bladeslaves. Fight." The woman didn't, and neither did Mat. He would like to say he overcame his fear and desire to live, that he was taking a moral stance against death matches and slavery. But he couldn't, because his body simply refused to take a step. The Judge spoke after one second dragged into two, then three.

"This isn't live, bladeslaves, and any disobedience will be edited out of the final product. Fight, or I will be forced to stimulate you." More seconds passed, until two drones veered from their path, one coming to his as the other went to the woman. Mat raised his blade out of habit, but it didn't come close enough to use. Instead a light flashed, and pain lashed through his body. It lasted for eternal moments, then vanished like it had never been, leaving him panting with tears in his eyes.

Despite the pain, his body felt fine, like a taser that didn't touch flesh. That… that had horrific connotations for torture. The drone buzzed closer, and Mat moved, forcing his body towards the woman. She flinched away, but the drone shocked her too, and before he had crossed half the distance, she jerked forward, raising her mace. Muscle memory flared, filling the grooves Yon had stamped into him. Mat slid to the side, his sword flashed to test reach and reaction, expecting her to dodge or block.

Instead the metal entered flesh, though the short nature of the blade made it little more than a cut. The woman howled in pain, swinging her weapon wildly. Mat froze at the sound, at the fear and anger and pain, and his dodge faltered. Nova roared inside his head." Move." He moved, but the mace clipped him, and he failed to roll with the blow. Implanted instincts smoothed out his footwork, letting him regain his balance in moments, and his fist flew out in a backhanded blow.

Pain exploded across his hand when it met the woman's jaw, though for all that it had hurt him, she was flung to the floor. He was no creature of muscle and strength, but he had weight, and a week of training seemed more than the woman had enjoyed. A cold part of him said to stab.

To end this while his opponent was on the floor, mace lying forgotten at her side. Mat flinched away as a thread of sanity flashed brightly, and the woman scrambled to her feet, lunging after her weapon. Mat should have stopped her, and instead he did nothing, horrified at everything and nothing. Nova continued to scream at him, but it was distant and hollow, like a memory of whispers. The woman rose fully, charging him with a crazed, terrified scream. Reality snapped back into focus, but too late.

The mace impacted his thigh, and muscle burst. Bone snapped while black blood sprayed, and the woman dropped the weapon like she couldn't believe what had just happened. Mat staggered back, the sheer agony blanking out his conscious mind. Filling it up until there was no space for anything but itself. His injured leg buckled, but Mat's body tilted forward, shifting his weight until he balanced on the other.

Memory and eyesight overlapped, and Mat slashed forward in an arc, fully expecting Yon to intercept, then counter attack. Metal met flesh, and he cut the woman open from belly to neck, parting cloth and skin like a butcher did meat. Mat stumbled when no resistance presented itself, bowling the woman over and landing hard, managing to dodge the fallen mace by luck more than planning. Pain was everything. His past, future and present all compressed to a point of agony, which radiated in waves from his hip.

Blood gushed out in great waves, though if an artery had been hit, he would have fallen long before now. He thrashed until he rolled over, bringing the woman into sight. She was just next to him, hands clutching at her stomach, a desperate, waning strength in her eyes. Mat wanted to apologize, he wanted to help, but most of all he wanted to stop hurting. Lucidity returned for but a moment, bringing one fact into focus. If he bled out before she did, there would be no healing. There would be no regret, no tomorrow.

He would die, and the cut did not look that deep. Mat's hand shot towards her throat, half of his mind cold and the other a panicked mess. Adrenaline made him strong, and so when he closed his first, the woman gasped, clawing weakly at his hands. He need not have bothered. Seconds later her eyes dimmed, and he watched her die, frozen in a single moment of utter unreality. Mat felt like a stranger in his own skin, and then he started feeling very little at all.

Unconsciousness greeted him, and Mat sank into it without resistance. They had laid him here hours ago. A droid had been forced to do so after he'd refused to get up from the doctor's table, though in truth the command had only registered minutes after being given. And now here he lay, starting at nothing in his own bunkbed, whole and hale.

"He snapped," Pabol said, certainty in his tone. Tobi nodded, though the man seemed somewhat more sympathetic. Reg glared at them both, though he didn't say anything. Pabol sighed, staring at Mat.

"I could put you out of your misery, if you'd like. Just nod, and this can all be over." Mat didn't reply. He didn't even hear the man. Everything was grey, though he could see perfectly fine. Even Nova's voice was distant and unable to penetrate through the fog over his mind, and even that single strand of thought made Mat retreat deeper within. Three people he'd killed now. The ship captain, the rock planet's initiate, and now the woman with the mace. Three, where before he had killed none. A duck.

A duck was the only thing he'd killed with his own hands, back when his childhood dog had mauled it. A mercy killing, by all accounts. Now he was a triple murderer. Around and around his thoughts spun. Over and over, twisting and turning, until time slipped away and his grip of reality loosened. What did it matter, after all? He would wake up soon enough, and a smile curled onto his lips, two birds facing him with cawing confusion.

LandTech would be there when he woke, and then this would all— Mat blinked, finding the cell empty except for Reg. The man was sitting at the table, slowly eating a bowl of slop while reading something that could be vaguely called a book. Hunger stabbed at his stomach, fierce and sudden, and when he swallowed, his throat felt like sandpaper. Necessity more than desire forced him to move, and Reg only glanced up from what he was doing, silent. Mat appreciated that.

That silence continued as he ate a bowl of slop himself, then another. Six glasses of water quenched his thirst, and only then did Reg speak.

"It gets easier," the man said quietly.

"Maybe that will be a relief, maybe not, but it does. If killing doesn't destroy you, it becomes routine, and it didn't destroy you. The next time will be easier, and the time after that easier still." Mat shook his head, profoundly tired in a way that had nothing to do with his body.

"I don't want there to be a next time."

"You have time. The Judge doesn't want us to break, despite how it acts. Neither does Obedias. They dropped this off with you, by the way." The man handed him a copper token, which Mat blinked at. The size of a coin, it was just like its wooden and bronze variants, though the rewards for both were less than great. Honestly, he'd been too focused on training to even bother with the kiosk.

"I don't want it," Mat decided, handing it back. Reg refused to take it.

"I'll just throw it away." Reg sighed.

"Don't see it as a reward for killing, but as a token of your survival. Hang on to it until the guilt fades, then decide."

"I'm not guilty," Mat replied. He surprised even himself by that being the truth.

"I—I don't want to do it again, I didn't enjoy it, and everything I've been taught demands of me to feel remorse, but there's no guilt. Not really." The man digested that, finally offering a nod.

"See how you feel tomorrow, and hang onto the coin. Wood and bronze we gamble with because they're not worth much. Copper is where the rewards start to get interesting."

"Worth?" Mat asked, mostly to distract himself.

"I suppose there's a ratio for them, then?"

"Of course. Steel is unique and cannot be exchanged for anything but biomods and techplants. Iron goes for three coppers, coppers go for four bronze, and bronze goes for five wood. That makes that chip you're holding worth twenty wood."

"Why not save bronze and wood to get copper?" Reg glanced at him, finishing his food.

"Most people do. Come, let's get your legs moving. I'll show you how to use the kiosk."

"I'm glad you're alright," Nova offered awkwardly.

"I knew you would be, of course, as my host, but when you didn't reply, I was wo— concerned for your mental state. Which, need I remind you, is where I live. In your head." Mat was too tired to smile, but he did send the AI a wave of gratitude. Afterword Patreon (No current advanced chapters for this story) Discord