Page 2 of Star Champion

“Join me in welcoming backyourchampion of champions! The undefeated… The unconquerable…”—a pause for dramatic effect—“the Bla-aaaaack Hole of Barésh!”

Hole strutted to center stage with an exaggerated, slow-motion gait. Every week it was the same: the champ sent a slate of hopefuls to their defeat. With odds so predictably in his favor the gamblers wagered not on who would win or lose, but how long a hopeful lasted. Flash-jewels set in his teeth and revealed by his grin were cosmetic luxuries. No one wore black in the ring, but he did. Fitting perfectly, his unconventional outfit was a calculated intimidation tactic for the competition. The suit followed his musculature, clinging to powerful thighs.

What a show-off. It made her want to last long enough to force him to catch his breath, and maybe catch a few licks from her sens-sword.

“First to take up the challenge tonight is our newcomer!”

Nico snapped her blindfold back in place. As the hot spotlight found Jemm, she could picture the announcer checking his notes before he finally shouted out her stage name, “Sea Kestrel! Step into the ring!”

The crowd reacted with mocking howls and disbelieving hoots: “What kind of name is that? Who is this sucker?” Some made bird cries to taunt her. Even Nico had urged her to use a different ring name, initially.

But it was the nickname her father gave her. His dream was to see her fly strong and free, far from this desolate rock, like the fabled raptor itself, but he died before he had the chance to take his family off-world.May I live up to the name, Da. Her spine tingled as she closed her hands around the thick grip of her sens-sword.

Nico checked her hood and blindfold again. Then he released her to a pair of referees who also inspected her regulation eye covering and the setting on her sens-sword before she was allowed in the ring. Somewhere on the other side Black Hole allowed his blindfold and weapon to be checked. Then they were left alone.

Her pulse quickened, and her lips formed a small smile. It was one thing to watch bajha, to practice sparring, or to listen to Nico’s accounts of club matches, but to be in the ring for real was an incredible rush. The joy of the heart-pounding moment expanded like a ball of fire in her chest, along with the dread of being found out and expelled from the ring.

Quiet your mind. Hefting her sens-sword in her hands, she found the familiar weight comforting as the raucous bedlam died down. She slowed her spinning thoughts and steadied herself in a way only her father had been able to understand.

A deep sense of peace stole over her. Everyone knew the goal of the game was to seek out, tag an opponent and register a hit on the chest plate without the aid of the usual five senses. To target Hole, Jemm had to find him first, using her intuition. Reaching out with her mind, she unfurled her awareness like a net, spinning, fanning out.You must listen…

“But not with your ears,” Da would explain when she was a small girl sitting, rapt, on his knee, his bajha suit unfastened at the neck after a match, the very suit that protected her now. “You don’t need your eyes to see, Jemm. The neurons in your body will guide you to your target. Let your senses show you the way.”

The champion loomed into her consciousness. With no build-up at all, he charged toward her with all the bluntness of a runaway ore hauler.

She sidestepped him, leaving him to lurch into the space where he had been certain he would find her. The crowd screamed with boos and cheers, ignoring or ignorant of the rules that bajha be played in silence.

“Last as long as ya can,” Nico had told her, but Black Hole was not reading from the same playbook. His impatience to defeat her in the opening seconds of the match was as obvious as a drunkard’s footsteps on broken floorboards. She and Nico had watched some of his matches to study his fighting style. He liked to use his size and speed to take opponents out quickly. Typically, his stamina waned in later bouts, allowing challengers to last longer against him. No such luck for her tonight. She was first up, and Black Hole was fresh and ready to pound an upstart into a coma.

A thud of a boot, his sens-sword jabbing, Hole lunged in for the kill. Spinning away from his thrust, she raked her sens-sword over his backside. His involuntary grunt of surprise gave away his location.

You make it easy when I can hear ya, Hole.

The crowd’s thunderous, disbelieving reaction faded to near silence as the fighters circled each other, sens-swords at the ready, close enough for her to smell his acrid stink of fear. He knew what he was up against now, aye. Not only was she not going down easily, she had enough skill to taunt him.

She hadn’t set out to humiliate him, but she couldn’t help it. He was so ridiculously overconfident! An inner, devilish sense of showmanship tempted her to dish out another whack on the rump, but overconfidence would be no more flattering on her than it was on him.

Play the way you were taught.

The champ left nothing in reserve as he angrily tracked her around the ring. She danced backward, keeping out of reach, partly to last longer and earn a larger prize and partly to goad him into attacking before he was fully ready.

Come and get me, Hole.

He glided into her space but this time she stood her ground. Their sens-swords clashed as she parried him, energy fizzing, heating her chin. Her sens-sword’s edge skittered along his before she slid home, burying the tip in the center of his chest plate.

The force of impact traveled up her extended arms, a cascade of snapping sparks filling the air between them. Bursts of energy jolted her, and she tasted the tang of it on her tongue.

All around her raged the crowd’s reaction. Her eardrums buzzed with the sheer volume of it. Gasping, she pulled her sens-sword back, disarming it, and then sank to one knee, her head lowered humbly as was the protocol in bajha.

Holy crat. She won.

Shewon!

Triumph swelled inside her.

Bounce grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and shouted for the referees. “Check his blindfold! Check him now!”

Before the refs reached her, she forced herself to slow her breathing to keep from exhibiting any of the triumph she felt inside. Finding nothing amiss with her blindfold, they untied it and held it up to the light to check for thin spots or pinholes in the fabric, all reasons to declare the win invalid. Finally, a ref reported, “No evidence of cheating. The win stands.”

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