James Axler – The Mars Arena

He addressed them with a military bearing, hands clasped behind his back. “You people have been given a great honor,” he stated, “to be selected as Baron Hardcoe’s champions.”

J.B. spit on the floor. The spittle splattered over the sec commander’s boots.

Color rouged LeMarck’s face, but he maintained his calm and ignored the act. “In a few minutes you’re going to be released into that pit.” He pointed through the glass wall. “Quakes dropped the center of this area years ago. The barons all worked together to build the restraining wall around the outside of the pit area and to rebuild some of the things inside. Like the neon lights.”

Ryan could barely make out the metal wall created from pieced-together slabs of concrete and sections of metal.

“You can’t get over it,” LeMarck said. “It’s forty-feet tall. Barbed wire strands circle the top another six feet over that. Concrete was poured on top of the wall beneath the wire, and glass, nails and shards of metal were mixed into it. Even if you found rope and a grappling hook, and could throw it that high, the rope would be cut by the glass and shards on top of the wall. Not to mention the fact that you’d be perfect targets for the snipers along the outer perimeter.”

Staring back through the window, Ryan glimpsed two of the guards in the foreground, obviously walking predetermined areas.

“Whose guards?” Ryan asked.

LeMarck smiled, obviously pleased. “Thinking, are you? Good, I like that. Knew the survival instinct would kick in along the way.” He glanced out the window. “The guards are from all the barons’ camps, with overlapping fields of fire, on the pit fighters, as well as one another.” He shifted his attention back to Ryan. “In years past one of the barons had the idea of using a couple of his wall guards as snipers. They had silenced weapons, thought they wouldn’t be noticed. But they were. And they were shot. For every man they shot, one of that baron’s men was shot. The two that were left over didn’t last long.”

“You said there’d be ten of us,” Mildred stated.

LeMarck nodded. “And there will be. I wanted to talk to the three of you. You’re used to working as a unit. Got a lot of hard miles on you, from the look of you. Saw how you went through those brushwooders. The other seven aren’t going to be much help, I’m afraid. Unless you can convince them to listen to you.”

Ryan didn’t say anything.

“I figure it’d be a waste of time,” the sec commander said. “They’re going to be scared, not wanting to listen to anyone.”

“What’s in the pit,” J.B. asked, “besides the other teams?”

“Mutiesscabbies and stickies,” LeMarck answered. “Animals, some of them mutie and some of them not. Four-legged. Snakes. Got some water traps in there with poisonous eels, piranha, anything nasty that could live and kill in that environment.”

“If we win,” Ryan asked, “we’re going to be set free?”

LeMarck lied without hesitation, Ryan not seeing a flicker of guilt in the man’s eyes. “Yes.”

Chapter Thirty

“How much do you know about the Five Barons and the seven villes?” the sec commander asked. He checked his wrist chron.

“Man whose team wins this,” Ryan said, “gets control of the seven villes for a year.” He didn’t give a damn about any of the history of the Big Game. Hoyle and Bernsen had provided enough of it. Once he stepped out into that pit, it was chill or be chilled.

“What about Baron Sparning Hardcoe?”

“I was told he’s one of the more efficient chillers in the group,” Ryan replied. “Runs second to Baron Connrad in numbers of his private army.”

“There’s more to Baron Hardcoe than that,” LeMarck stated.

“Yeah,” J.B. said. “I can see how he’d give folks that impression, what with the way he invites some of them to play this game for him.”

The sec commander looked angry and defensive. “The baron is building docks and boats in the seven villes. Building up trade along the northern Cific coastline. People are moving into the villes now, instead of working to stay away from them. There’s work there, homes, mebbe a future if they all pull together.”