Page 8 of Meteor Storm

He let out something akin to a laugh and I couldn’t help myself. I was too tired to struggle. Too frustrated to surrender. Too terrified to lay there and take it. I let out a loud, angered scream, swinging the blade toward him. He grabbed it with his other hand and twisted my wrist so hard, pain lanced up to my elbow and I was forced to drop my only useful weapon. I still had my dull knife, though. It was better than nothing.

I jabbed at the ape’s ribs, hoping it would at least wound him. When it hit his leathery flesh, he grunted, glancing down as if offended. He knocked my hand away, disarming me completely.

I thought that would be it. I thought that was the end.

But then I felt the quakes of heavy footsteps slamming toward us. I barely had time to process what I was hearing before something big crashed into the ape, knocking him off me so hard that I could hear bones breaking and crunching at the impact. The two figures rolled across the ground in a heap of sand and pebbles and limbs. When the dust settled, I spotted the gray hunter on top of the ape creature. His hand moved in a subtle yet powerful motion toward his ribs and the ape bellowed in pain. The gray one drew back and I saw one of his blades covered in black steaming liquid as thick as oil.

I rolled away from the tussle, grabbing for the curved blade again when I heard the ape cry out one final time. The other one grunted and the sound of a wet, solid thud filled the clearing. I didn’t want to look, but I forced myself to turn anyways. Maybe for the closure. Maybe because I wanted to see my attacker ripped to pieces.

The ape was convulsing on the ground just before the gray one used his other blade to slice open his thick neck. Black blood spurted across the sand toward me.

I nearly gagged at the stench when the gray one straightened over his kill and turned, setting his eyes on me. close, he was just as menacing as the rest, his bare chest covered with blood and filth. His eyes were overtaken by large pupils until they shrunk to thick slits surrounded by a reptilian yellow-green.

I stood on weak legs to face him, clutching the blade hard for a fight I knew I’d lose. My eyes swept over him in a rapid assessment, searching for a weakness, an injury, anything I could turn to my advantage.

I found nothing.

He was a wall of muscle, a full head taller than me, broad-shouldered and immovable. Two blades rested easily in his hands, balanced with the casual confidence of someone who’d been using blades his whole life.

He made no motion to attack, but if he wasn’t going to make the first move, then I was. If I was going to die, I was going to die fighting, so I lunged, swinging the too-heavy curved blade with all the strength I had left in me. He knocked it to the side so hard, it slid right out of my hand. I shouldered him, shoving my entire weight against him to throw him off balance. He barely budged and when I reached for one of his weapons, he didn’t seem to make much of an effort to hang onto it. I snatched it right out of his grip and jumped back, lifting the blade to defend myself. When he didn’t move toward me, I decided to go on the offensive again and swept it toward him only for a debilitating shock to radiate from my collar. I screamed, collapsing to my knees as jolts of agonizing pain invaded my muscles. The blade dropped from my hand, and I folded to the ground, squirming until the shock ebbed.

Eyes blurry with tears and the taste of burnt flesh in my mouth, I lay on the sand, taking shallow, strained breaths.

I’d never felt a shock like that. Never. It had gone straight down my spine like a long needle, grazing every nerve with fire.

The game was designed for us to lose, just as the valerian woman said. We were meant to be chased, wrestled, and fucked for the entertainment of some twisted, alien audience. I felt sick to my stomach and didn’t know if it was the shock of the collar that did it or the thought of what was about to happen, but I was certain it wasn’t about the food anymore.

But then I saw the brute in my dizzy haze walk over me and do something with his blade. There was a muffled announcement over one of the many speakers, but I understood nothing. I didn’t have to. By the time the hunter turned back toward me, my eyes fell closed and unconsciousness claimed me yet again.

4: Thilar

The games were repetitive. Predictable. It was a routine that I had swiftly dismissed to the back of my mind so my body could exist on autopilot… until that day.

We entered the arena as we always did, to a crowd of loud spectators. Every time, the females were displayed on the dome’s ceiling for all to see, including us, and every time, they were mostly the same. On rare occasions, a new specimen was introduced, but they rarely made it through their first game.

That day was different.

That day, my concentration was instantly compromised when I saw her face on the top of the dome.

She was not valerian. Her tone was too bland for that. She wasn’t gek’tal. Gek females were large with skin the color of algae from Tros-kah. I ran through the races I knew of in my head and tried to place where she could have been from. She seemed delicate. Her slender frame looked frail and soft. Long tresses of fine hair fell from her scalp and down her back. It would be easy to grab hold of and if it was sensitive like the filaments on a valerian’s head, anyone could take advantage of that.

Human.

There had been rumors that humans had finally taken to space, but they were in another quadrant. One we paid very little attention to. The odds of one being on Mekah Prime were so slim, I hadn’t considered it, but there she was. The crowds were consumed by her unlikely presence. No doubt, the betting pool was in chaos.

What was she doing in the arena on an outlaw station so far from Earth?

I immediately sized up my competition like I hadn’t faced them all a dozen times before. I knew how they moved. Which females they favored. How confrontational they were and how skilled they were with weapons. The male shikaris standing on either side of me were weak and run down. They’d likely go after the human first out of pure cowardice. She seemed like the easiest prey. Gek’tal were formidable in a fight, male and female alike. Valerians seemed fragile, but most were trained in basic combat at the very least. They were swift and light on their feet. The human, though. I had studied her species briefly in the past, but nothing in my knowledge told me she would be a strong fighter against the others.

She would be destroyed. She would be tackled, fought over, and ravaged in front of thousands, just as the games intended.

I had to get to her first.

If she’d been brought to Mekah Prime, that meant humans were getting involved in galactic affairs very quickly. Bringing a human to Mekah from a neighboring quadrant could be considered an act of war. Wars had started for far less and monrians knew every war happening in every quadrant because we were involved or had the potential to be involved in most of them.

The instant I saw the human slice up the side of her thin gown with the tiny blade she was provided, I knew she was planning to put up a fight, however brief it was going to be. She had long legs, but she was thin. At least compared to the other females. I wasn’t quite sure what she was compared to her people. The shikari beside me was thin, but all of his people were like that. Thin with spikes atop their heads that grew like crystals and eyes disproportionately large for their slim faces since their planet of origin was dark and dreary.

I stared at the woman while the speakers blared with announcements in the common tongue, introducing yet another frenzied chase. It would end the same as any other. There would be blood, sex, and suspense, and in the end, death. I stared at the human, watching her eyes dart about as if trying to soak in all the information she could before the horns sounded. She scanned over the line of males, studying everything. When her eyes fell on me, my head cocked to the side. She widened her stance, gripping the blade in her hand tightly. It would do her no good. The females were always given faulty weapons. It was simply meant to look like they had a chance.