Page 1 of Star Champion

CHAPTER1

Barésh

Jemm Aves’s brother tied a blindfold over her eyes to the sound of the crowd cheering for her quick end. “This is it,” he said. “No turning back.”

“I know. I’m fine, Nico. I’m doing this.” For a moment, Jemm thought the loud rhythmic thumping was her heartbeat but the people in the arena were stomping their boots. It was a rough crowd; they were drinking hard and chanting threats. They wanted blood.

“Aye. Try to last as long as ya can.” Nico’s hands shook as he checked the seals and fasteners of her jumpsuit to make sure there was no skin showing. Contact with bare flesh with even the tip of an active sens-sword caused excruciating pain. At the settings used in back-alley bajha matches such as this one, accidental contact with the blunt weapon could cause a burn, seizure, or worse. This crowd wanted the worst.

Unlike her opponent’s protective bajha suit, hers was dingy and patched, originally used by her father and custom-made for his larger frame. It was good that the shock-resistant fabric hung so loosely on her. She was a twenty-four-year-old woman trying to pass for a teenage boy in a bar full of laborers who liked to think they were still able to tell the difference.

Not that there weren’t some females in the audience, but none competed in bajha. Not here on Barésh, this backwater frontier world, or anywhere else in the galaxy. It wasn’t forbidden, exactly, but to her knowledge no lass had ever dared try. Bajha was a game of the ancients, based on instinct and intuition. It was also a rich man’s sport, beloved by theVash Nadah, the unimaginably wealthy and privileged royal families who ruled the galaxy. They used their tamer version of bajha as a path to a higher state of consciousness. But for Jemm, it was a lifeline, a way out for her family.

The crowd’s stomping grew so loud that the concrete floor beneath her boots shook. With each breath, she almost choked on air thick with the reek of urine, sweat, and “swank”, the chemical cocktail that put nearly as many Baréshtis in the grave as the trillidium mines.

“Jemm, quit fidgeting.” Nico adjusted her hood over a skin-tight cap that hid her scalp and flattened her hair. He wanted Jemm to cut her hair short, but she had refused. The tail of her long, thick braid was channeled between her shoulder blades, her street clothes layered on top. The shapeless bajha suit covered all of it like a painter’s tarp, yet she sensed her little brother’s unease in the way his fingers fussed over her.

The boisterous horde did not scare him; this was his world—these rowdy drinking holes—his escape. Bringing his sister into that world to play bajha? Well, that probably had him a little concerned.

“They’ll see a lad and not a lass. I know it. We’ve got expectation bias on our side,” she said in hopes of easing his jumpy nerves—and hers.

“Expectation…what?” Facts gleaned from book knowledge tended to defeat him. Their father had hungered for education, as did Jemm, but Nico craved things she would rather not think about.

“It means we see what we expect to see. No oneexpectsto see a lass dressed in full bajha gear,” she plucked at her jumpsuit, “so they won’t see one.”

“Let’s hope they don’t,” Nico muttered with a last yank on her hood.

The refs would call the match if they discovered the trickery and levy a gaming fine they could not afford. The consequences of that would be disastrous. That was the real risk she and Nico took embarking on this insane scheme.

What about their mother, her health failing? And little Button? The child was Jemm’s responsibility now. What would happen to her if they got into trouble? Their household slept with a real roof over their heads unlike so many others. Nico had not been able to work in years, but Jemm held a steady job, a good one—by Baréshti standards. Employment working for the mines but not in the mines was considered a “fancy gig”. Was it selfish to want more?

She and Nico argued these doubts over and over again in the weeks leading up to today. They desperately needed the money, that much was true, but entering the seething, sometimes violent world of back-alley bajha? Disguised as a male?

It was her idea, but Nico went right along with it. No surprise there. How did she expect him to talk sense into her when he was always looking for ways to improve their situation with get-rich-quick schemes?

It’s just one match. One round fought with a local champ before being eliminated. It would earn her a piece of the betting pool divided between the amateur challengers afterward. The longer she lasted against the champ, the bigger her share. She had no illusions about taking this any farther than that. She was a grown woman with obligations and a family to support.

A family that depends on you to be the responsible adult who doesn’t spend nights in north-city fight clubs.

What was she thinking? Her skin tingled with perspiration.

Nico’s hand tightened on her upper arm. “Listen up. We watched this champ. Studied him. We know how he fights. All ya have to do is stay with him as long as ya can.”

She nodded. “I got this.”

“Aye, ya do.” He squeezed her arm. “Now, go out there and earn us some silver.”

Suddenly the chaos ebbed enough for a voice from center stage to reach her ears. “Happy Eighthnight, my friends!” The announcer had arrived, bellowing out his greetings.

No turning back.

Nico lifted her blindfold the smallest distance necessary to allow her a peek at the spectacle. “We call him Bounce.”

Jemm couldn’t help grinning. While not overweight, Bounce was shiny, short, and very round. He was a little bouncy ball of a man with soft, puffy jowls framing his lips that hinted at the kind of meals of which she and her family could only dream. The profits the club raked in from hosting these matches kept the announcer well fed and living an enviable quality of life. Cleverly, most bars held bajha games on Eighthnight, which was both payday and the evening before the lightest workday of the week. Since this particular north-city dive was favored by mineworkers—trill rats—the place was packed. Naturally, the sport was as popular on Barésh as it was in the rest of the galaxy. But in the colony Eighthnight betting was tainted with an air of desperation that took bajha to a whole new and frenzied level.

“Welcome home to Rumble, and the finest games you’ll find in the colony!” Bounce roared to thundering approval. “Tonight, five challengers will attempt to unseat the reigning champion, one of them a newcomer!”

Jemm stood taller as laughter and jeers drowned out Bounce’s voice.

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