Page 92 of Galaxy Games Four-Book Box Set (Galaxy Games)

92

The Plan

A nubis

I wish my thinking was clearer today. I’d hoped removing the device would return me to my former size and let my brain work better. I was wrong. It might be lucky, though. Perhaps today’s challenge will need my size and strength.

I try to focus on Zedd. Although it’s hard for my addled brain to follow her words, one thing is clear—she’s lying.

″Here’s a map. You’ll see where we are, and where the next flagpole will be. Within a mile of here is a deep chasm with a river running through it.”

The holovid shows a wide, deep crevice with water below. There’s no way we’d be able to travel down the side of the deep canyon and up the other side by sunset, much less find a way across the raging water. Does Zedd expect us to craft a boat? Out of what?

″Never fear, viewers. The Galaxy Network is generous and soft-hearted. Look at this. Not too far from where we’re standing is a bridge we constructed for this very purpose.” The female grants the audience one of her widest fake smiles.

″All you contestants need to do is get to the bridge, cross it, then turn south. We’ll be hovering everything in this camp to the other side of the river while you’re completing your challenge. Don’t forget, anyone, male or female, single or paired, who arrives at the pole before the last sun sets will be granted their freedom and earn their prizes. We’ll be waiting for you with a feast and additional rewards from our generous sponsors.”

The vid cuts to a lengthy list of sponsors supplying such necessities as pet food and ornamental shrubs.

My head is so fuzzy, even the directions seemed complicated. One thing remains clear, though. The easier Zedd says the task is, the more I know it’s a trick.

Sadie

We all grab nutrition bars and water. I stuff mine into Anubis’s pack and he does the same for me. The six of us jog off. Remembering two days ago when the others hurried off to the easy route, I half expect the other four to scurry ahead, but we all stick together.

Shah and Ryo were at the front of the group, but they slow to speak with Erwann and Zrini. I see a lot of head nodding. Then the Halckons slow until they’re even with Anubis and me.

″We think it’s a trick,” Shah says.

″Yes. If there’s one thing we know, TGN and Zedd can be counted on to make our lives difficult,” I say. Anubis nods.

″I suggest we stay together and fight together,” Ryo says. “The other team agrees. We have no reason to compete. We can all win together… if we get to the finish line.”

We agree and keep jogging at a steady pace. We have no idea what’s in store for us, but Zedd’s insistence that today’s challenge will be super easy, barely an inconvenience, tells us we have no time to waste.

We arrive at the bridge a few minutes later. None of us are stupid enough to run across.

″Look at that,” Erwann says. “It’s brand new, built just for us.”

″Yeah.” I scoff.

Just like something out of the movies, it’s a rope bridge. Four thick, sturdy ropes are strung across the chasm, which looks about as wide as the length of a football field. The two bottom ropes hold wooden planking. The top two ropes serve as handrails.

″How do you think they sabotaged it?” I ask.

″Could be rigged to blow up when we’re halfway across,” Ryo says.

I’d already pictured that scenario, but I wanted to consider any other possibilities.

″Could just be rigged to fall apart when a certain amount of weight is on it,” Zrini says.

″Right,” I agree, nodding. “Better optics. I don’t think there will be an explosion. The viewers wouldn’t like to know the game is rigged. That would make them feel complicit and they’d be upset. It has to look like an accident.”

All five of them nod their heads in agreement.

″Let’s keep thinking. What else could happen?”

As if nature decided to answer my question, we see something unusual rippling the waters. It passes by, then swims past, circles, and returns.

We all gasp when it breaches the surface of the water like a whale.

This is no whale. I’ve read the largest whale on Earth can be the length of three school buses. This is a prehistoric planet. This leviathan is maybe two or three times as big as that. And when it snaps its jaws in the air, it looks like it has a hundred teeth, all as long as Anubis’s five-inch fangs.

″Holy shit,” I breathe. I don’t know whether this beast arrived accidentally, or if they used dams or some other mechanism to herd him in our direction.

″I wonder how high he can jump,” Shah says as if she’s talking to herself.

There were reasons they let us sleep late this morning. One was they kept us up all night having sex after dosing us with aphrodisiacs. Possibly the bigger reason was they wanted us to get a late start on this supposedly easy challenge, so we’d have less time to explore options.

We don’t have time to go farther along the top of the chasm in the hopes of finding another way across. And really, what do we think we’ll find? It seems this was an uninhabited planet until they tried to make an intergalactic Jurassic Park out of it. From what I’ve seen, there were never any natives here. There’s not going to be another bridge.

″I woke up when we were just about out of the forest yesterday,” I say as I look at Anubis. “There were vines, right?”

He nods.

″Did they look sturdy?”

He shrugs.

″I’m thinking you run back to the forest, grab as many vines as you can carry, and we string them together. We can tie the vine rope to the stanchion on this side. Then the lightest person in the group…” I point my thumb at my chest, “can ease across the bridge and secure it on the other side. We do it twice with two sturdy vine braids, then we cross one at a time. The extra vines will span the gap even if their brand new bridge fails.”

It’s silent except for Anubis’s long, low growl.

″Don’t like the plan?” I ask, “or don’t like who’s going to perform it?”

He nods at the last part. His lip is still lifted in a snarl when I slip my arm around his waist. His tail curls around me and hugs me tight. I love him for worrying about me. It’s nice that someone wants to protect me.

″Let’s discuss the merits of the idea, then argue over personnel issues,” I suggest.

Several other ideas are pitched and rejected, but we keep circling back to this plan.

″You three males run to collect vines. The gap is so wide, you’ll need to make two trips. As soon as you return from your first trip, we’ll start braiding. We’ll argue later about who’s going to string the vines across the gap.”

Well over an hour later, we women are braiding the vines and the males are off on their second trip.

″If you wind up touching the flagpole before eight tonight,” I ask, “what planet are you going to want your parcel on? I’m new to space. I don’t know the choices.”

Shah says since she and Ryo are from Halckon, they’ll go back and rejoin their families. Ryo was abducted as a young teen to train as a gladiator. She says she was sold into slavery by an angry older husband who decided he didn’t want her anymore when she turned twenty-five. Asshole.

Vrini blushes and stammers, then says she can’t imagine being separated from big, strong Erwann. “Wherever he wants to go, I’ll go with him. I have nothing to return to on my home planet. That is, if he’ll have me.”

″If he’ll have you? Have you seen the way he looks at you?”

She smiles shyly and shakes her head.

″He looks at you like you hung the moon,” I say.

″And you?” Shah asks.

″I can’t go back to Earth. They don’t know about interstellar space flight. There’d be pandemonium if I show up from outer space. I don’t know anything about the planets I could settle down on. Anubis was raised on a genefarm. He won’t want to go back there.”

″What about Marentine?” Shah asks. “It became famous after the Down to One episodes aired. The King of the planet is much beloved. He allows anyone seeking asylum to settle there. One of the winners of the first challenge was an Earth female. I heard she’s still there, with her mate.”

I see the males returning from their second trip at a run and don’t have a moment to ask how there happened to be more than one winner on a show called Down to One .

We’re all looking away from the chasm as we watch our males hurry toward us. Our attention is captured, though, by a noise from the water. We turn to see a gargantuan beast jump out of the river, almost reach the height of the bridge, snap its jaws, then plunge back into the water. This guy? This guy is like that other animal’s daddy. Twice its size. Enormous.