Gladiator (Gauntlet Prime Book 1) Read online

  Mel put a hand on Anna’s arm. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. How are you holding up?”

  Anna took Mel’s hand in hers. “I’m fine. If you do what Kathor says, then he’s not so bad. He’s really a scientist more than anything. As long as things are going smoothly, he doesn’t try to hurt me or anything.”

  Mel looked away for a moment. It was now or never, but she still didn’t trust Anna. Too much odd behavior. “Is it just Kathor? It’s weird that we haven’t seen any other aliens running the ship.”

  “The ship pretty much runs itself,” Anna replied. “Kathor’s really proud of that, although he pretends not to be. Some of the technology he has is way better than even the governments have access to. He’s always ranting about government policies and regulations. Reminds me of one of my cousin, Cliff, sometimes”

  Smiling along with Anna, she considered this new information. Kathor was alone. And the ship pretty much ran itself. Probably some kind of super computer. Maybe they didn’t need Kathor to fly the ship. And if it had been to Earth, then it probably had instructions or maps somewhere to get them back. Like the map history in her cell phone.

  A lot of probablies.

  “What’s it like working for Kathor? What does he make you do?”

  “I guess I’m kind of a research assistant, but I feel like a secretary mostly. I take notes and watch over some of his experiments. He tells me to do things, like check on the ship’s status or take care of you. I’m trying to learn as much as a I can about the ship and the alien culture. Really, it’s very interesting.”

  Mel chuckled. “Really?”

  Anna looked slightly offended. “No, it is. Don’t tease me.”

  Mel squeezed Anna’s hand. “I’m not teasing you. Okay, maybe a little. It’s just that you seem… different. I have a hard time imagining the girl falling in the pool being interested in alien anthropology.”

  Anna tilted her head. Mel thought she looked sad, but her eyes narrowed in a way that Mel thought odd. As if Anna were suspicious. “I’ve changed. We all have.” Anna released her grip on Mel. “I should get back. Kathor’s leaving and I’ll need to be on the bridge.”

  Mel looked at Anna in surprise, immediately trying to suppress it. “Leaving? You mean off the ship? Where’s he going?”

  Anna shrugged. “Important alien scientist meetings. He’s meeting with some… people on another ship.” Another flat smile crossed Anna’s lips as the two held gazes. “You should rest, Mel. It’s important to Kathor that you get better quickly.”

  “You know how much I’d hate to disappoint him.” Mel thought quickly, wanting to get information out of Anna without alerting her. “You can tell him we’ll behave. I’m sure he’s got cameras all over the ship anyway.”

  Anna shook her head. “There are no cameras. I’ll be here to make sure everything’s okay. And the robots, of course.”

  “Of course,” Mel replied.

  Anna left the room. And Kathor was leaving the ship. Could it work? Could they somehow overpower the other robots and escape while Kathor was gone? It would come down to Anna, and Mel doubted the girl would instigate a rebellion on her own. Anna was clearly too afraid of Kathor to even consider it. But if Mel and the others could somehow disable the robots, then surely Anna would realize this was their best chance.

  Mel swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She would have to move quickly; there was no telling how long Kathor would be gone. The idea was crazy, but not as crazy as waiting to be beaten and tortured.

  Chapter 11

  Beast and Riley sat in their usual spot, next to the window wall. Mel tried to approach them casually, but she felt like a nervous wreck.

  She glanced around the room and wondered if Anna could be trusted about the cameras. She wouldn’t have outright lied about that, would she? It wouldn’t make any sense. If there were cameras, there wouldn’t be any reason not to tell Mel.

  Mel motioned for Jeff to join her, Riley and Beast. She sat down cross-legged next to Beast and leaned in. Riley and Beast stopped talking and she thought Riley looked a little annoyed.

  “What’s up, Mel?” Riley asked.

  “Wait until Jeff joins us. How are you feeling?”

  Riley shrugged. “A bit better. It goes up and down. I’m almost back to the point where I’m as weak as a baby.”

  Beast laughed. “Small as a baby Manesh too. But you’re not hairy enough.”

  Mel smiled as Jeff joined them. He sat down next to her, a bit closer than she would have preferred, but she didn’t have time for that now.

  “We may have a chance to escape. But we need to move fast.”

  Riley’s eyes opened wide; Mel shushed him before he could get a word out. Beast looked at Mel curiously while Jeff just stared at the floor.

  “Are you serious?” Riley said. “Or better yet, are you crazy? What makes you think we have a chance to get out of here?”

  “I was just talking to Anna. Kathor is leaving the ship. We have a window where we can escape.”

  “That’s not much of a plan,” Jeff said quietly.

  “I’ve had about three minutes to ‘plan’ anything,” Mel snapped. “I didn’t say it would be easy. I’m not worried about the zombies, but the robots are a problem.”

  “That’s one problem,” Riley said. He was skeptical, but she thought he was warming up to the idea. “Did you sleep through how to pilot a spaceship in class, too? Cause I definitely did.”

  Mel held his gaze. “Anna.”

  Riley shook his head. “What? Are you saying Anna can pilot the ship? Did she tell you that?”

  Jeff barked a quick laugh. “I’m not sure I’d trust Anna to drive my car.”

  Mel nodded. “I know, I know. Yes, I think she might be able to. To figure it out at least. She said most of the ship is run by computers. And Kathor has been having her take care of some of the ship. There’s a chance — a reasonable chance— that she can figure it out. Enough to get us out of here.”

  “How about getting us home?” Jeff asked.

  “Kathor found us, so there must be some record of how to get back to Earth in the computers. That’s probably the biggest gamble. But it doesn’t matter if we’re trapped here. If we can hijack the ship and get away, we can get help. Right, Beast?”

  Beast hesitated. “Perhaps. I’m not familiar with which government agency a new alien species would contact to get a ride home. Do you have one of those on your planet? On the other hand, you could always figure that out once you’re free.”

  Staring at the others, she waited for someone to seize the opportunity. Jeff kept looking away, but Mel couldn’t figure out what was going through his head. Riley was gazing out the window, his forehead creased in thought.

  “I’m in,” he finally said. “Honestly, I doubt I’m going to make it much longer. Hopefully I can get home before I get any sicker. But all of you have gone through those training things. Someone is going to die if we stay. Maybe all of us. How are we going to do this, though? We’re trapped in this room.”

  Mel turned to Beast. “Are you in? Would Gorgeous try to escape? Mirage?”

  “Given a decent chance at escaping, it would be foolish not to take it. Riley is right, it’s likely we’ll all die here in the end. Of course, we all die in the end anyway. But Gorgeous has promised to take me to Sha Shahur, and it sounds like a much more entertaining place to die than here.”

  “Jeff?”

  Jeff sighed, avoiding Mel’s gaze. “Um… sure. You’re going to try anyway, right? Honestly, I can’t see this working. Imagine if we were on a cruise ship. There’s zero chance we would be able to pilot it ourselves. I don’t believe Anna has figured it out in just a week, either.”

  Mel frowned. Was Jeff right? She was putting a lot of faith in Anna, whom she barely trusted at the moment. She couldn’t say that to Jeff or the others, or they would back out for sure.

  “Imagine if the cruise ship was heading over a waterfall,” Mel said.

 
; “Cruise ships don’t generally sale on rivers,” Riley pointed out.

  Mel rolled her eyes. “An iceberg, then.”

  Riley’s eyebrow arched up. “The cruise ship is sailing over an iceberg?”

  “Whatever! Something where you knew you were going to die. This isn’t a choice of taking over the ship or sipping cocktails at poolside while we wait for the next show. It’s take over the ship or wait to be killed.”

  “Sure,” Riley responded defensively. “I’m just saying that waterfalls don’t make sense.”

  “Fine, then it’s settled. We need to tell the others. Riley, you and Beast get Gorgeous and Mirage. Jeff, you go tell Jon, Nick and Evan. I’ll tell Sharon. We’ll need a distraction to get them to open the door. I think it should be Riley. He can pretend to be really sick, go into convulsions and stuff. We’ll call for help. Eventually, they’ll come to the door and then we’ll overpower them.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” Jeff asked. “You saw what those training robots did to us. And I would bet the insect robots won’t play as nice as the training robots do.”

  “Beast, what do you think? We can take care of the zombies, I’m pretty sure. They look more and more decrepit every time I see them. How dangerous are the robots?”

  “You know better than any of us. That electric shock looked painful. If there’s just one and I’m close, maybe I can subdue it before my fur gets singed. I really do hate messing up my fur, you know? But if there’s more than one, I don’t think we’d have a chance.”

  “Dammit,” Mel muttered. “There has to be a way. Do we have anything to use as weapons?”

  Everyone shook their heads. They literally had nothing, not even plastic knives.

  “Do we risk it?”

  Riley grinned. “I have an idea. You guys go talk to everyone else, make sure everyone is on board. Let Beast and I talk to G and Mirage. Let’s meet back up in five.”

  Mel nodded slowly. “Okay. Good luck with whatever plan you have in mind.”

  The four split up. Jeff and Mel walked over to where Jon, Nick and Sharon were sitting. Evan was with Mirage in one of the rooms, while Gorgeous was by herself. Interestingly, Mel noticed that Riley stopped by Mirage’s room first.

  They told the others the plan and everyone acted as skeptical as Jeff and Riley had at first. After some pressure from Jeff, the other two boys agreed to go along. Sharon fidgeted and kept biting her lip. Both her eyes were black and her nose still red and swollen from when she had broken it in training. She was basically a wreck, but Mel couldn’t tell if that was just her default state now, or if the escape plan was making it worse.

  Once Mel was sure the others were set, she walked back to the window to wait for Riley. Jeff discussed the best way to overpower the zombies with Nick and Jon. Mel thought he was being a bit of a showoff about it, demonstrating some kind of arm lock to the other boys that Mel was pretty sure would be useless. There were so many things that could go wrong, and Mel began to doubt that trying to escape was even a good idea anymore. And she could feel the time pressure, like a physical thing, smothering her. It was all she could do to not yell at Riley and Beast to hurry.

  Finally, Riley shuffled back. She looked at him, gray and sweaty with just the effort of walking around the room. She put a hand on his shoulder. “Are you sure you can do this?”

  Riley grinned, looking a bit more like his old self. “I’ll manage. I even have it as part of the plan. I’ll fake my near death, which won’t be that hard right now. Once we’ve overpowered whoever comes, I’ll need you and Gorgeous to help me. We should have Beast and Mirage up front, followed by Jeff and his crew, then you, me and Gorgeous in the back. Do you know where the control room is?”

  “No idea. I’m guessing the door will be different than the others. But I was thinking we could ask one of the zombies. Nicely, of course.”

  “Of course,” Riley said.

  “What about Evan?”

  “He knows what’s up. I told him to talk to Jeff about how to help with the zombies.”

  Mel saw that Evan had already joined Jeff and the others while she and Riley had been talking. He was sulking and seemed put out, while Jeff alternated between lecturing and yelling at him.

  “Damn,” Mel said. “I hope this works. The most important thing to do is find Anna. Without her, we can’t do anything.”

  “Right. That’s probably more important than finding the control room, actually.”

  “What about the robots? Did you figure out something there?”

  Riley grinned. “Oh yeah. Let’s just say I think I found something we can use as a weapon. We’ve never seen more than three at a time, right? And the last time they came for Beast, Jeff and Sharon, they only sent one of them. I think Kathor’s security is getting sloppy.”

  “Anna said he’s more of a mad scientist type. But we should assume he’s smart and knows what he’s doing.”

  “I guess,” Riley shrugged. “But he may be underestimating us, too.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Mel said. “If Mirage is ready, let’s do this. Start your routine, then we’ll call out for help.” Mel paused and lowered her voice. “Riley. Truthfully, do you think this is a good idea, or am I being stupid?”

  “Too late to back out now. Seriously, we can’t just sit here and take this. I couldn’t live with myself if we let this chance get away because we’re too afraid to even try.”

  Mel hugged Riley. “Thanks.” She walked back to Jeff and the others, in time to hear him yelling at Evan.

  “Just do what I told you. And don’t screw this up or get in the way,” Jeff said, repeatedly stabbing a finger towards Evan. Evan looked down at the floor without replying.

  “Keep your voice down, Jeff,” Mel said, trying to keep hers quiet too. “He’ll be fine.” Jeff scowled at her, but she ignored him. “Riley’s almost in place. Are you all ready?”

  Everyone nodded, but Mel noticed that Nick looked almost green. Sharon sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs. “This is a really bad idea,” she whispered. “We’ll get caught.”

  Mel tried to look sympathetic, but was losing patience. “So? And then what? He’ll beat us within an inch of our lives? Or maybe do medical experiments on us? I’m having problems seeing the downside.”

  Sharon buried her head between her knees, ignoring Mel. Mel shook her head and looked away, watching as Riley sat just to the left of the main door talking to Gorgeous.

  Riley suddenly grabbed his head and moaned in a low voice. He was a pretty good actor; for a second, she thought he was really having a convulsion. Gorgeous put a hand on Riley and he laughed, saying he was fine. But the laugh turned into a cough and then Riley started shaking while holding his head.

  The shaking got worse, until he was curled into a ball, alternately shaking and coughing. Suddenly realizing that she was just watching it instead of reacting, she jumped to her feet. Walking over, she tried to look genuinely concerned. Riley’s act made that easier than she had anticipated, but Mel’s palms were sweating and she self-consciously avoided wiping them on her pants.

  Gorgeous held on to Riley, calling out to him.

  “Is he okay?” Mel asked, feeling like the question was extremely stupid, given his condition. “What’s going on?”

  Gorgeous looked at Mel with an expression of laughter and sadness. A moment later, the translator told Mel the impression was one of concern. But there was a strange feeling behind it; the translator seemed to think the concern wasn’t genuine. So much for Gorgeous being a good actress.

  Mel ignored the translator and hoped no one watching them would notice it either. She had the sudden thought that if there weren’t cameras watching them, as Anna had said, then this whole ruse might be for nothing. They must at least be listening in on them. Why hadn’t she thought of that earlier?

  There was nothing to do but go along with the plan. Mel sat down next to Riley, trying to talk to him, while the others gathere
d around. After almost a minute of this, Mel really had no idea what to do next. She leaned down and whispered in Riley’s ear. “Louder.”

  Riley immediately doubled his volume. Mel raised her voice as well. “Riley, what is it?”

  “My stomach… burning on the inside…” he groaned.

  Mel looked around as helplessly as she could muster. “Anna! Anna, Riley’s sick. He’s like burning up or something. Please, you have to help him!” She hadn’t thought to call to Anna specifically before, but it made sense in the moment. It would be perfect if Anna showed up with the zombies and robots.

  Mel stared at the door, waiting for it to open, but nothing happened. She realized that Riley had stopped moaning, probably because he was waiting for the same thing she was. She grabbed him and shook him. “Riley! Riley! Can you hear me!”

  Riley jerked in alarm, but then immediately started moaning again. This was getting so ridiculous that Mel was ready to go hide in her bedroom and pretend it had never happened. Seriously, she could just tell Riley to give it up and act like he was feeling better. No worries about dumb plans to escape that had a million failure points. Or looking like an idiot obviously trying to fake an illness and escape.

  While Mel sat dithering between doubling down on calling for help and telling Riley to pack it in, the door shimmered and disappeared.

  Chapter 12

  It was so sudden, that everyone jumped in surprise. Three zombies came in, two men and a woman. They lurched forward and Mel thought they might fall over dead any second. Behind them were two of the robots. Both of them pointed the electric spears at Beast.

  Everyone stood frozen for a moment as the zombies stumbled towards Riley.

  “Move… away…” the one in the lead said, the one from the hotel. Most of his teeth were missing and he looked like he had lost at least fifty pounds. His skin stretched tight over his bones, and his mouth was frozen in a near permanent grin of pain. Mel scrambled backwards, afraid the man would touch her.