Pit Fight

The smoking and thoroughly perforated cybercab deposited Mini-Steve and Dash on one of the dozen or so rooftop landing pads of the Wayward Stargazer. The cab had been circling the landing pad for nearly twenty minutes before it could land due to the outrageous amount of traffic buzzing above the roof. The Gazer was neither the most popular nor the most respected establishment in the Hospitality Zone, but something big was obviously happening tonight. Thousands of beings were streaming from vehicles into the upper floor of the casino talking, chittering or expressing pheromones excitedly at each other. While the friendly robot who had introduced himself as Steve paid and then unfolded itself from the cab Dash was able to overhear snippets of conversation from passing beings. They were all speaking about the fight between Gorzal and Cheyenne, who Steve claimed was his friend Eva. Cheyenne seemed to have been a very popular and brutal fighter who had vanished from the fighting circuit a number of years ago only to suddenly reappear for tonight's bout. Dash ran a quick query on his 'net implant and read conflicting reports that Cheyenne had either been killed in an unsanctioned fight, crushed in a black hole incident, succumbed to fatal exhaustion during a multi-species orgy or undergone intensive reconstructive surgery and was currently competing as a hyperpod racer on the desert planet circuit. Her surprise reappearance on Corgol was the source of a great deal of conversation, both pleased and skeptical amongst the pit fighting newsnets.

"I thought you said your friends name was Eva, but everybeing here is talking about 'Cheyene'."

"It is and they are." Said Mini-Steve as he walked towards the glowing entrance of the Stargazer with Dash beside him. "When Eva used to fight she used the nom de guerre 'Cheyenne', she never really explained why and I didn't press her for the reason since talking about the pits seemed to make her sad. No one wants to make their friends sad do they?"

Dash didn't answer that but continued to follow Mini-Steve deeper into the casino along with the throngs of other beings who all seemed to be heading to the same place that they were, the subterranean fighting pit which the 'Gazer advertised as having "the best food, wettest drinks and highest payouts in the Zone". To which a passing Stofarsi said to it's identical twinmate companion, "Well the drinks are definitely wet here." Most of the beings surrounding them seemed to be tourists, mid-class gamblers or pit fighting fans of either Cheyene or Gorzal. This made sense to Dash since he knew that the super rich would all have landed in the high security private docks away from the sweaty, chattering masses with their banners supporting the combatants and hovering infant pods.

They entered the pit's outer concourse which contained dozens of betting kiosks where creatures were placing wagers on the undercard battles, a Churosi attack squad verses two Jountari snails, a pair of grapplers from the super dense world of Breen and even a robot melee. However the real action centered around the main event, Gorzal the Bone Eater against the former champion Cheyenne.

"Hold on, Steve, I'm gonna place a bet. No reason to come to the fights if you aren't going to participate." said Dash as he made his way towards one of the less busy kiosks. "The odds don't seem to be in your friends favor, pal. They are giving her a fifteen to one shot of surviving this match."

"Gorzal is certainly formidable Dash, but Eva won't lose." Mini-Steve stated without hesitation.

Dash's antennas slowly rotated while he considered the small drone then he said "OK, Blue Eyes, you've convinced me." as turned to the kiosk and placed his wager on 'Cheyenne' to win. Dash collected his betting chit and he and Mini-Steve wove their way through the press of beings towards the closest entrance to the pit.

The open gateway was framed by two eighteen foot long mottled brown tusks curving inwards to cross over the top of the entrance, the former owner of which, Dash noted, probably hadn't parted with happily. They made their way to a broad stone bench on the lower tier of the arena which already held a loud and drunken group of Anchar'i marines on shore leave. The marines were young and shouting wildly at the robot melee which was already underway on the floor of the pit. The bipedal humanoid robots were armed with three foot long spikes or heavy maces protruding from the ends of their arms which they had been using to either bludgeon or stab each other respectively. The robot warriors had obviously been programed to fight at a much slower pace than they were capable of to aid the organic spectators' comprehension and enjoyment of the fight. Most of the twenty robot fighters were already incapacitated  and lying around the pit smoking and sparking like twisted metal skeletons. Of the few who remained mobile only one of them still had two functioning legs and it was using this to it's advantage. The undamaged green and black robot was charging around the pit towards a blue robot with a mace on it's one remaining arm who's crushed leg was squirting hydraulic fluid into a spreading puddle beneath it.  Dash collected a drink from a passing vendor as the green robot delivered a crushing blow to the head unit of the blue robot, cracking the head in half and releasing a shower of sparks. Some of the marines had obviously bet on the green and black robot because their hysteria went into overdrive every time their 'hero' collected another victory. While the green robot was attempting to free its mace from the crumpled head of its latest victim it was taken unaware by a red robot streaked in black fluid which had crawled up behind it and speared it through its upper back into it's skull with the severed arm of another fallen robot. The drunken marines howled with displeasure at their defeat as they were mocked by their compatriots.

Dash looked away from them to avoid eye contact and a possible brawl as he said to Mini-Steve "I never really cared for robot fighting. It's just too weird the way they dont make any noise as they fight. Just beeping and clanking. No real stakes to the fight in my opinion."

Mini-Steve didn't respond to Dash as he continued scanning the arena for signs of his best friend Eva.

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend you buddy" said Dash "I just meant that it feels more, I don't know, real when the fighters care if they win or not."

"You haven't hurt my feelings Dash. These constructs are not sentient like me. They are only appliances which will be repaired or scrapped depending on their level of damage. Then charged up and released to destroy each other again and again. As you say, they do not 'care' about anything any more than your boots are able to 'care' about walking. They are tools and nothing more."

"I guess you're not a member of the robots rights movement, huh?"

"I am no more a robot, than you are a singer, Dash."

A team of squat janitorial robots rolled onto the floor to sweep up the remains of the robot fighters as the massive, shiny Jountari snails were led into the arena. They left thick trails of foul mucus in their wake as they blindly followed their trainers who were brandishing heavy nets full of meat dripping gore along the path that the snails were intended to follow.

Dash turned to Mini-Steve and said "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Have you been talking to my manager?"

Mini-Steve turned his hand-painted blue eyes toward Dash in a way that he knew made beings feel as if he was looking directly at them though it made no difference to his actual scanning instruments and said "Even the worst of singers do not wind up in shoot outs with private security troops, and you would be the first entertainer that I have ever met who is able to send alpha level distress signals to cybercabs. I don't know who or what you are and I am willing to allow you to keep your secrets because I do not think you intend to hamper me in my plan to help my friend. In fact I think that you could be very helpful today if things go as they usually do for us."

Dash looked at Mini-Steve and took a slow pull from his drink but said nothing in response.

Mini-Steve turned back to the arena floor as the Churosi squad advanced carefully towards the pair of snails with practiced precision and said "now lets watch the next bout, hopefully these creatures' deaths will be 'real' enough to keep you entertained."

The Suite of the Stargazer

Eva sat cross legged in the center of the bed in the suite which Shuuz had arranged for her. The room was typical of most mid-tier casinos in the Hospitality Zone, lots of pseudo platinum filigree and carvings of creatures either fighting or copulating, it was impossible to tell which if you weren't a member of their species. Outside the room's large window cybertaxi's, hoverbuses and various winged creatures flitted past the window as she sat,  practicing a breathing technique to calm and focus herself. She could feel her nerves singing with anticipation, every muscle in her body tensing and releasing slowly. Eva always got like this before a fight, and she knew that the only way that she and Steve were getting off this world was if she won tonight.

Shuuz wasn't entirely wrong when he said that pit fighting was all Eva was good for, she had other skills but there were very few things in the universe that she loved as much as fighting. The simple beautiful art of battle had always given her a serenity and a sense of wholeness. The feeling that she assumed monks and holy men spent lifetimes seeking in reflection and study, she had found the first time she buried a hatchet deep in the spiny head of a Vernalian warrior and heard the roar of the crowd. That overwhelming surge of power, relief and victory washed over her and she was reborn in mud and blood to her true life. She was baptized into the faith of the fighters and she thought she would never need anything else in her life. Long before she met Steve, before they began adventuring across the cosmos, before she understood the meaning of friendship, Eva spent nearly two decades in pits across half the galaxy. She had fought in massive war pits with armies and she had fought with smaller teams but her favorite had always been solo combat. She had bathed in the blood of a hundred different species, both sentient and otherwise, and she had won and lost her freedom dozens of times in the pits. She had been a slave fighting for her masters' glory and the promise of food scraps, and she had also emancipated herself and fought for wealth, glory and all of the trappings of fame. She had battled spider-like Shukuthn hordes in zero gravity fighting cages, wrestled the amphibious Yantali in water filled pits and once she had even fought a fire breathing Mondrian war steed to a stand still, losing most of the skin from both of her arms in the process. There was a time in her life when she could not imagine anything other than fighting until she was finally torn apart by a howling pack of N'katihs or vivisected by a lazer sword wielding Star Knight. That was the old Eva, battle scared and inured to emotional attachment, the woman who had never known friendship. In fact, Eva was in transit between systems, heading towards another fight, when the commercial star liner carrying her experienced a navigational error and drifted too near the black hole which had trapped Steve. Since that day she had not entered into a blood sport for any reason, this woman who had lived only to fight and bleed and kill had found a new reason for her existence. Eva, who had never known real affection in the arms of dozens of lovers and hundreds of whores, had found a kindred spirit tottering on the brink of annihilation in the maw of a black hole. A sentient ship, seventy tons of ceramic, metal and plastic, had given Eva more than millions of cheering blood-thirsty fans ever could had she fought for a hundred years. With Steve, Eva had found Friendship, and if she failed in her battle today he would be trapped on Corgol. With his current energy reserves Steve would not be able to reach another planet, and he would either be sold or more likely stripped for scrap by the hordes of starving Bokars who lived in shacks around the space port. Steve had given Eva a reason to leave the pits behind her for a life of adventure and intrigue amongst the stars, and it was for Steve that she returned to the pit today. She would fight for Steve, for all of the worlds that they had promised to explore together, for every species they had yet to meet, and most of all today, in the squalid pit soaked with the blood of a thousand species underneath the Wayward Stargazer, Eva would fight for friendship.

New Friends

Mini-Steve's attempts to override the cybercabs emergency systems were being met with surprising resistance for a non-military vehicle. The aircar was plummeting towards what appeared to be an enormous reclining Q'taitni female, but which Mini-Steve's map identified as "Approchable Annieh's Stellar Sexdome". The statue/building held a bowl in two of it's three arms that contained a swimming pool where a heated firefight was taking place. Mini-Steve was able to identify what looked like four security thugs taking turns firing at and leap-frogging towards a fifth being who was crouching behind a series of statues depicting seven of the two hundred forty-eight generally accepted Saortean coupling positions beside the pool. It was this same pool that the cybercab was currently falling towards with increasing speed.

While this did seem like the kind of situation that Eva would typically find herself in minutes after making planetfall, Mini-Steve did not identify the cybercab's target as being Eva. The being appeared to be a slim Weikuran male dressed in what could only be described as a wrinkled and slightly battered lounge singer's tuxedo. The Weikuran fired a few shots from a small blaster at the security team then spotted the cybercab a split second before it crashed into the pool next to him soaking all five combatants. The Weikuran dove into the cab the moment the door opened and he shouted "Blast off!"while firing from the still open door of the vehicle. The cybercab lifted from the water and banked away from the Sexdome's pool as blaster fire burned holes through the bottom of the vehicle narrowly missing Mini-Steve and  the laughing Weikuran maniac who had just commandeered it's cybercab.

The Weikuran slumped back into the taxi's seat chuckling softly to himself and checking his blaster's charge level when the cab beeped and asked, "Where to buddy?"

"Continue circling, Please" interjected Mini-Steve turning to the Weikuran who had not noticed the blue 'eyed' sphere crouching in the seat next to him.

Using two legs Mini-Steve pinned the being's arms to his sides in a gentle but unbreakable embrace "Welcome aboard, I'm S.T.V!" chirped Mini-Steve brightly as he opened a port on the front of his carapace to reveal the snout of a blaster pointed directly in the Weikuran's face. "You are a being who knows how to make an impression!"

The Weikuran stiffened and then quickly relaxed saying "Take it easy, er, S.T.V. I'm Reachu Dahsh, The Cosmic Crooner, and I'm as you could see I needed to make a speedy exit back there. Sorry I borrowed your cab, speaking of which, what the hell is a drone doing in a taxi?"

Mini-Steve scanned Reachu Dahsh's face and transmitted it back to the main ship so that it could be run through the Corgol's criminal database. Weikurans are an insectoid species which has many forms during it's maturation process. At hatching they are blind, limbless grubs which live in alkaline pools and eat voraciously until they are ready to form a cocoon and move on to their flying phase. During their winged adolescence Weikurans are trained based on their specific aptitudes or the needs of their hive. After decades of training Weikurans molt a third time, losing two sets of legs along with their wings and begin their bipedal phase. Weikuran training typically focuses on engineering, ship building, esoteric maths, boi-tech sciences and combat. While Mini-Steve was familiar with the artistic achievement of their extrusion sculptures which are treasured in many parts of the galaxy, it had never heard of a Weikuran singer. "I could also ask what a lounge singer is doing in a firefight?"

Dahsh arched an antenna and raised his feeding pincers in the Weikuran version of a smile saying "Sometimes beings just don't appreciate my stage banter."

"Those seemed like some pretty serious hecklers back there. To answer your question, I'm using this cybercab to find my best friend, Eva."

"Friends are hard to come by around here, S.T.V., and this is an easy planet to lose people on. You got any leads?"

Mini-Steve considered Dahsh's segmented chitinous face as the global crime report returned without any warrants or information for the giant insect which was more suspicious on a planet like this than him being on the most wanted list. "I don't have anything yet but my friend Eva is even better at making impressions than you are so I'm sure it's just a matter of time."

The cybertaxi swooped past a series of overlapping stepped pyramids which were overlaid like most of the buildings in the Hospitality Zone with advertisements for the delights within the casino or shopping mall or whorehouse.  The projection coalesced into huge sparkling letters promoting one of the planets more grisly entertainments, a pit fight. "TONIGHT ONLY AT THE MISGUIDED STAR GAZER" it flashed "GORZAL THE BONE EATER" over a moving image of a massive scaled creature with what looked like enormous clawed hammers at the ends of its arms and two prehensile trunks ending in fanged mouths extending from its armored head. It raged back and forth in the projection demonstrating its fearsome power, howling and slavering. The words continued to scroll, "VERSES THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF THE ONE AND ONLY...CHEYENNE!!!" The  picture disolved into an image that Mini-Steve knew all too well, his best friend in the entire universe, her confident smirk, fiery hair blazing and arms crossed defiantly across the top of the pyramid.      

Dahsh noticed Mini-Steve looking out the window at the flashing projection as the cybertaxi circled the casino. Mini-Steve loosened its grip on Dahsh and said, "My friend calls me 'Steve" what do your friends call you?"

"It's been a while since I had one of those, but I guess they called me 'Dash'."

"Well, Dash, do you want to meet my best friend Eva?"