Page 1 of Argen Mate
Chapter One
Argen Trametu
The stench of unwashed bodies and smoke hung heavy in the air. The crowd was a noisy bunch, and a lot of them were drunk. If one didn’t know better, they might think they were in a rowdy bar in a seedy port city. But it was a prison planet, and we were all prisoners.
I was in the fight pit. It was my second fight of the night and his first. My last match didn’t last nearly long enough. I needed to punch someone or something for a lot longer than I got to punch him. I thought Alarian warriors were a tougher lot than that. Our match barely went three rounds, and most of his punches didn’t land. He smelled of rotgut whiskey, so maybe he was drunk. But I pounded him without mercy.
Even that was not nearly enough to assuage the rage I still felt at landing here on the prison planet of Julconi. I am a Uatu warrior from Farseek, and I had done nothing to warrant going to a prison planet for the rest of my life.
I was on leave visiting Farseek, my homeworld when the Sargans attacked and left our world in ruin. I remember walking with mother at the open-air produce market in the town square.
My next memory was waking up strapped to a bunk on a slave ship. I was no slave! I am an Uatu warrior of the Farseek Brigade! I escaped every chance I got.
They punished me, tortured me every time, and every time I did it again. I didn’t know the slavers put a tracker chip under my skin. I could never get to a starport to steal a ship and get off world. They used flying drones to track me. The drones had shockers that shot me and dropped me wherever I stood.
That was painful enough. Then the punishers shackle me naked by my wrists and ankles to what can only be called a torture frame. I’ve been whipped, beaten, and repeatedly shocked until I wished they would just kill me.
I hated being helpless to defend myself. The Sargans knew I would kill them had they left me unrestrained. They always tortured me unconscious before they took off the restraints and threw me in a cell until they could sell me off.
Finally, they must have grown tired of torturing me, so they sent me here. At least now I could fight back, sometimes three fights a night. So, far I haven’t lost, though sometimes I take a good beating before it’s over. Sometimes the pain is better than feeling nothing at all.
The next fighter was new and looked more evenly matched. The first round we danced around each other throwing and blocking punches. He was pretty good, but I was better. He clearly had training in hand to hand combat, but few styles compare to that of an Uatu warrior. I toyed with him for a while letting him think he was actually blocking me. The next round I made my move landed more blows than he could block. I pounded him and roared like a crazed animal when he fell, and the rules said I had to stop.
The rage just welled up inside me. He was no innocent. Duck, block, punch, pivot kick. He lasted five rounds, and I knocked him out. Then I got a thirty-minute break. The next guy was bigger and meaner and had horns.
This one was hard to beat, and I took a lot of hits, but so did he. We each got in two knockdowns but I got the last one in the twelfth round, and he didn’t get up for another.
No, I didn’t kill him. I really had no grudge against him. He was just someone to hit… to pound out my rage at what the Sargans had done to my family and my world. It was not enough. It would never be enough!
The next day everything changed. I dragged out of my hovel to find some food and fill my plastic jug with water at the community well.
Then I heard someone call my name and I turned to see who it was,
“Trametu, is that really you?”
“Pegitu, what the hell are you doing here?” I murmured, hardly believing my eyes.
He nodded his head, silently asking me to go with him, so I did. He was probably the only man on Julconi who I would trust.
We walked away from the outdoor market where I had stopped to see if I could trade some crystals for some food. “Pegitu, what are you doing here?” I whispered. “Did they get you too?”
“I’m here to get as many of our people off this world as possible. The Dreads are coming in a few days with a passenger ship to pick them up. All you have to do is show up at the pick-up coordinates.” Pegitu told me then gave me directions. “What happened?”
“I was on Farseek visiting my family when the Sargans attacked. I was walking in the market with my mother. We got separated, and I never saw her again.”
“I am sorry, my friend. We all lost friends and family there. Some have been found but only a fraction of those who were lost. We have been searching almost two years.” Zorem Pegitu said.
“What can I do to help?”
“Just bring any of our people you find to the rendezvous point to be picked up,” he said. “How long have you been here, anyway?”
“At least a year. This place sucks, but I get by okay. Every time they land those supply ship’s I’ve tried to get to one, but they land inside a fence, so we can’t get near them.” I told him. “I know a couple dozen good people here that deserve to be free, but they’re not Uatu.”
“If you vouch for them and they want to come to Farseek, Command told us to take them.”
“We’ll be there,” I told him
Argen Trametu is my name. After my homeworld was attacked by the Sargans and I was taken from my world to become a slave of the Sargus Empire. They destroyed every city and village on my homeworld of Farseek and stole all the people they could find alive before they left.
