“Why do women have to make everything so confusing?”
“Amye was confused long before she joined the crew. She’s just mad you might have read something in her file she doesn’t want you to know. More than likely it is something idiotic, but it’s a major embarrassment to her. She’s done nothing but try exuberantly prove herself a worthy member of this crew since you brought her on board.”
“So this is one of those ‘I should totally understand about women’ things and don’t because she won’t share her feelings and yet it’s my fault I don’t understand?”
“For her, it’s more complicated.”
“I’ll never understand women.”
“Don’t look at me. I like my men older and with a higher rank.”
“I’m walking away from this.”
HAVEN’T I PROVEN myself? Amye scarfs a drink she swipes from a tray of one of the enslaved tailed aliens. Why don’t they want to listen to me? Joe says to see without your eyes; well, they don’t see. She witnesses Scott win at a dice game and leave the table with a stack of winnings and two females. Australia doesn’t see. She climbs into bed with him every night, and he climbs into bed with everything else during the day. Not my place to tell her.
Don’t they know what’s going on? This place isn’t just a haven for smugglers and those wishing to indulge in indictable behavior, they traffic in slaves.
“We’re not here to deal with the indentured,” Kymberlynn reminds her. “We’re here to collect bounty. You should have another drink, maybe gamble.”
“Seriously, you want me to drink?”
“I want you to blend. Say what you will, Scott’s attracting the correct attention—relaxation. Doug’s buying an expensive toy. Why are the rest of the crew here?”
“To have a good time. We have to find this guy.”
“Let Reynard and his brain rapist search. You help him out by blending.”
Amye snaps her finger, and one of the tailed slaves brings a tray with a selection of drinks. “I’ll get blended. Don’t you worry.”
Cheers beyond those of game winners draws Amye’s attention. She migrates toward the exciting howls and death calls.
The corridor opens up into a stadium. Amye fails to push past all the patrons gathered around the top edge shrieking, chanting, and howling for blood.
“Pay for a booth.”
“What?” Amye glances at the level above them with overhanging windows allowing a view straight down into the arena.
“Pay for the booth area. Where else will you get to witness a functioning Dracon Arena?”
“Like, never. I saw footage of one once,” Amye beams, “but never in person.”
“Then splurge on yourself, Little Sis.”
Amye finds the stairs and stumbles on the first step. Her drink sloshes. She ends any chance of spilling more by quaffing the rest.
Viewing room seventeen flashes “vacancy” on the sign over the entrance. Amye slides her left hand into a slit in the wall. The computer reads the DNA implant card on the back of her hand.
“Two tickets.”
The computer accepts her payment with a chirp, spitting out two tickets.
“Rather primitive.”
“If you had used credit chits instead of a traceable DNA card transaction, no one would ever know you were here. This place is about anonymity.”
“For criminals.” Amye hands the two tickets to the burly gray-skinned alien at the door.
He tears one ticket in half pocketing the piece before handing the stub and full ticket back to Amye who jams them into her jacket pocket upon entering the booth.
Not as lavish as she would have thought, but certainly a better view.
“It looks like a pit in the floor. Not much to get excited about,” Kymberlynn rolls her doe eyes and plops into an overstuffed cushioned chair.
Around the glass windows are control boxes with buttons to push under coin slots for credit chits or a place for a person to slide their left hand in order to access their DNA implant card and their money.
A few other aliens drink before the glass. None of them seem interested in gambling with the control boxes.
“Don’t you remember those Kypterian traders talking about one of these arenas? I’ve always wanted to visit one.”
“They’re not legal, and you’re participating in murder.”
“You’re not an accessory if the participants willingly enter the game.”
“Wow. You believe that.” Kymberlynn hops from the chair. “A minimum of two rivals enter the checkered floor down there and only one may get to the end.”
One of the enslaved tailed aliens brings a tray of drinks. Amye snatches one and gulps down half. She won’t let Kymberlynn ruin her fun.
“Did I hear you say you’ve never been to a Dracon Arena before?” The Osirian pirate sports a skin-tight shirt revealing well-defined muscles. Admiring eyes drift from his pecs to the part of him Amye doesn’t care for—his overpuffed mustachio and the two thick braids of hair that hang past his elbow. Woven throughout the braids are leather straps of varying texture.
“They are the skin of those lives I’ve taken,” he informs her.
“What?” Amye knows she must have been staring at the leather. Skin trophies. He must throw in with the…Amye’s memory fails her. She knows his two braids define his stature and his cut of the spoils. Why can’t she remember?
“You simply pick a man to win and be like those fools over there and wait for him to get to the opposite end of the arena, or you make the event more sporting.”
Amye knows the control box has options. You pay—or, rather, bet on trying to move the odds in your contestant’s favor by selecting weapons, traps, or obstacles. She leans against the window and takes a sip of her drink. In the arena are two males: the one who just knifed the other patron on the gaming floor, now wearing a blue striped leotard, and a humanoid lizard draped in a yellow leotard. Amye’s not sure what species he is, but he’s no Tibbar.
She drops credit chits into the control
