Weekly Drabble #399: Peace in Our Time

This week's prompt comes from preston with 'interstellar olympics', giving us the opening to a (possible) storyline, or just a one-shot of some wholesome sporting activities. Hope you enjoy!

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Peace in Our Time:

Humanbreed (noun): colloquial derogatory slang for the human species as well as divergent races, or non-human species aligned culturally, politically, biologically or genetically with humanity.

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The arena was relatively small, just over the size of a football field, but the roar of the crowd was still deafening. Tens of thousands – probably more – of throats shouted, jeered, buzzed, ululated, lowed and cheered in anticipation as the doors opened and the small band of humans was pushed from the darkened corridors out into the light.

There were a dozen of them, survivors of the raid on Evelyn’s Hope, a tiny colony that had so far escaped the Pact’s culls and purgation fleets. Until the day a month ago when the skies had darkened and a Ch’harssi vessel had descended, vomiting strike pods out to encircle every city and outpost, their soldiers methodical tightening a noose around the populace. There’d been no escape.

David thought he could see some Ch’harssi in the crowds today. He was sure he could hear their droning clicks amidst the indecipherable roar of thousands of alien throats. True to their damned doctrine, the Ch’harssi had only spared those who fought – at least those that survived. Everyone else they’d slaughtered. Mercy had only been given to children and those too sick to stand. Anyone else they’d caught without a weapon had been butchered. They called it ‘the coward’s cross’. Humanity called it crucifixion.

Ch’harssi who didn’t fight had their legs and secondary arms severed, primary arms tied to the cross beam and then the soft teguement of their bellies was slit open. If you were lucky, you died relatively quickly from blood loss. If you weren’t, you died of infection or as scavengers pulled you apart, bit by bit.

The last sight of Evelyn’s Hope David had gotten was of the rows of crosses around Hope’s Landing that the Ch’harssi had erected, one for each civilian that they’d captured. The carrion birds had already begun circling. Then, the door closed and he’d been taken away, left in a dank hold for days with the handful of others who’d survived fighting the invaders, taken to a fate likely no better than the men and women left to rot around the cities they’d once lived in. The only difference here was that the end for David and the others was delayed. There was no mercy for ‘humanbreed’ these days.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, he could see more of the place they’d been forced into. They’d not been told where they were, but he’d served in the Terran Expeditionary Navy and seen his fair share of the galaxy. This was a Kalvyrian arena. Across the galaxy, Kalvyr was known as the ultimate games world and pleasure planet. It catered to every species and every taste, from simple beachfront retreats to championship sports to gambling junkets, but its greatest attraction were its blood sports and gladiatorial arenas. They ranged from dirty hand-dug fighting pits to lethal race tracks or dogfighting sky-cages hundreds of kilometers across, but they all shared the same rules. Kill or be killed.

This arena was fairly simple. It stretched out across before them like a field of clean white sand that, the soldier knew, wouldn’t be either of those things for much longer. There were a handful of rocks scattered throughout the arena. Some were small, their only purpose to trip an unwary runner and some were massive enough to provide cover for the entirety of the small group of humans.

Overhead, floating screens broadcast close-ups of the humans to the crowds to ensure that they didn’t miss so much as a single drop of the blood that was about to be spilled. Holographic banners with advertisers’ logos and commercials played in the air like ghosts. For those that wanted to spice their experience up with wagers, odds on each participant scrolled over the screen whenever their images came up.

Here and there, weapons and tools were stuck in the sand, grips facing up. A sword, a cudgel, a spear, a shield. It was going to be hand to hand, then. Sitting around the periphery of the massive sandy stage at evenly-spaced intervals were a number of dog-like creatures. They had four eyes, no fur, no ears, their tails were long and whip-like and their skin was an oily red. They all watched the humans keenly, but none took so much as a single step towards them.

David had never seen them before, but they’d been told what they were. Fae hounds. They would play no part in the events about to unfold – unless you tried to run. During their ‘orientation’, the humans had been shown just what the beasts’ training entailed. The survivors were here to entertain the crowd. Cowardice and panic was not sufficiently amusing. Nor was watching a fighter dispatching a gibbering, sobbing wreck. If you fled from battle, if you refused to fight at all... the hounds would come for you and tear you to pieces. It was, David remembered the pitmasters telling them, a truly terrible way to die. Thus, the hounds’ presence was a motivator for the unwilling gladiators. Fight and likely die, or flee and suffer the consequences. Either way, the crowd would have their blood.

The only other thing of note in the arena were the black lines sprayed over the sand, a sequence of ten leading to the far side of the arena. The doors behind the group closed.

“Behold,” the speakers crackled, the boom of the announcer’s voice louder than even the cries of the crowd. “The humanbreed!”

The screams and catcalls from the audience rose a dozen decibels. “Survivors of the cleanse of Hegsmal Four, another world purified of humanbreed degeneracy and contamination! Hardy survivors, each of them responsible for the death of at least one Ch’harssi warrior!” The sounds of the crowd took on different notes as some of the audience cast jeers and laughter towards the Ch’harssi guests, while others cheered their approval for such fine specimens. This was not one of the more famous arenas and it often made do with the scraps the other, more famous gladiatorial pits, agents and slavers left for them. Today was, David had been told from some of the other gladiators, special.

They way they’d said it told him that they knew more than they were letting on... and they were looking forward to the humans getting to find out for themselves. Not all of Kalvyr’s gladiators were slaves. Some were professionals, coming from the galaxy over to prove themselves in the hardest arenas – no pun intended – across hundreds of thousands of settled worlds. Some were criminals who accepted a tenure in the arenas rather than prison or execution. Some were slaves and some, like David and his companions, were prisoners of war. Others sold themselves into indentured servitude to pay off debts, each battle they survived giving them a chance of getting their lives back.

No human would have that chance. Humanbreed were favourites in Kalvyr. Not as fighters, but as victims. The crowds liked seeing them die, but they made good sport before they ended up staining the sands. The pit bosses had laughed as they talked about it, saying humans spawned so quickly that the arenas would never run out of fodder. They’d been wagering among themselves which of their charges would survive this event and which would be the first to die.

“Today,” the announcer continued, “we’ll see if those victories were merely skill or luck! The humans will fight to get across the arena. Each stage they clear will bring them one step closer to safety!” Lights from above pulsed down on the black lines in the sand, one after the other.

A countdown appeared on the monitors.

David nodded to himself. They’d already been told the rules. It was simple enough. At the start of the event, they mustered on the black line closest to their doors. For every round that they survived, the remaining combatants moved to the next black line, slowly getting closer to the doors on the other side of the arena. This was, they’d been told, just as the announcer described: a winnowing to separate the wheat from the chaff. The survivors from today would be auctioned off to new lives as pit slaves, there to amuse the crowds with their until they died.

He’d asked if the final stage would be them fighting each other. The pitmaster had laughed. “You should be so lucky, humanbreed.”

“Tony,” David said to the black-haired, olive-skinned man on his right. “You run to the maul. Bring it back to Agatha.” The maul was a distance away from the group. The weapons had been scattered around the arean to be accessible from anywhere, but also to tempt over-eager humans away from each other. Get too far out, and you’d never make it back before whatever came out of the far doors reached you. You’d never have a chance to use the weapon.

Tony was a marathon runner. He’d managed to outrun a Ch’harssi shooting at him, circle around and drive a piece of steel rebar into the alien’s left spiracles. David trusted him to get the maul and get it back to Agatha. She was a miner, a heavy gravity world and a refugee from another purgation on her home world. She was the biggest of them all; she’d killed three Ch’harssi soldiers with nothing but her bare hands and unpowered mining tools.

“Kelli,” he said to the freckled young woman behind him. She was a competitive archer. “Don’t go for the bow. It’s too far away. We’ll get it later. Andy. You take the cutlass.” Andy was a Marine CQC instructor. “Ben, I want you to grab that spear.” Ben was a fisherman. He’d put his experience with hooks to practical effect during the invasion. “I’ll take the shield and cover anyone I can.” Those were all their skilled fighters. Everyone else had been lucky. “Everyone watch out for each other. Don’t fight alone. Gang up on them and don’t hold back. Bite, kick, scratch. Fight dirty. Do whatever you have to to win.”

Not everyone was going to make it out of this, but he’d be damned if he gave up on anyone. The Ch’harssi had had to break his legs to stop him. He wouldn’t fight any less hard than that now. “Whatever comes through those doors,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt, “we kill it. We’re all getting out of this, you understand? All of us.”

He got scared, determined nods. Above, the counter hit zero, the crowd roared and the gates opened.