Galen sat on the luxurious bed in his room, in the complex beneath the Red 'Zirja Nights. It was completely different from the simple quarters where he had seen Matthew through his probe. The difference between "recruited", enslaved fighters and challengers who came willingly was made plain here as well. The furniture was, like in the club above, mostly made of polished wood and red velvet, the bed was huge and had sheets of crimson silk. A large armchair was set in one corner of the room, and a mirror with an impressive golden frame hung from the wall. Embedded in the wall was a screen that contained a selection of channels with all kinds of entertainment. There was also one that showed the current match in the arena.
Galen had the arena-channel open all the time. The fight between the Drazi and the Llort was still going on, and it was very even. Neither was very badly hurt yet, but both were getting tired. Soon, one of them would make the one fatal mistake it took to end the match. Then it might be Galen's turn, or Matthew's, or, as Galen hoped, the time for the both of them.
He had managed to smuggle in his one very important item - a special tranq tab that he had made before entering the game. He had designed it based on the data he had gathered on the mind-control devices. He was fairly certain that it would work as it was supposed to, not only putting the target to a deep sleep, but also disabling the device from within.
It had been a very close call. The Drazi guards who had searched him and taken hisweapons for safekeeping had used a very effective scanner that had seen through his illusions. Luckily they had allowed him to keep his healing crystal and several other things, which apparently did not look like they could be used in a fight. He was sure the tranq tab did look like such a thing, though, and had only managed to hide it by means of an extremely simple diversion. He had dropped the tranq tab and stepped on it, and then picked it up when the Drazi had finished scanning, making it look like he was tying his shoelaces. It was almost shamefully primitive, but it had worked, and that was all that mattered.
The exceptional scanner had again made him wonder what, or who, was behind this whole thing. The technology was far more advanced than what he would expect from the Drazi, just like that of the mind-control devices. Nevertheless, he was fairly certain that it was not Shadow technology, since it was not organic, and did not carry the horrible familiarity, the likeness to his tech. Perhaps the source was the "wise and ancient" alien of the rumor that had led the Excalibur to Sozirja.
In the arena, the Llort let his guard drop for a very short while, taking a deep breath and relaxing his arms. The Drazi noticed this immediately and attacked, landing a forceful kick in the Llort's midriff. He doubled over, and she continued with another kick, this time aimed at his head. His head jerked back with a sickening snap that was clearly audible through the screen, and he fell flat on his back, completely still. The match was over. The next one would begin as soon as the staff had cleared the body from the arena and fetched the new combatants from their rooms.
Galen had just turned off the screen when there was a knock at the door.
"Enter," he replied, and in came yet another Drazi guard in a red uniform. After a closer look, Galen decided he had already met this one, although he saw no use for that piece of information.
This Drazi did not speak English quite as well as Zesra the porter. "I come to take you to first battle. I lead you to door to the arena and let you in. There you meet one you must fight. You know rule already. Now, please follow."
The guard led Galen to the long corridor lined with doors, familiar from his walk to his room, and from the earlier images from Matthew's probe. With mixed feelings, anxious and hopeful at the same time, Galen accessed the probe to see where Matthew was now. He saw an identical corridor, and as he checked the direction, he saw that the source of the signal was right in front of him and coming closer. Matthew was approaching the door at the far end of the arena.
It was exactly as Galen had hoped. He did count as a human, and so he was to fight the one other human currently in the game. He would fight Matthew.
Gideon was excited. Yet another match was coming, another chance to prove his worth and gain more glory. The previous one had been easy, the Minbari youngster religious caste and weak. He hoped this one would be more of a challenge, although easy fights had their advantages. His ribs were still aching from one tough blow that the pierced Drazi had delivered, and the cuts where the sharp nails had slashed his face were there as well. Still, the injuries were minor, and they did not slow him down at all.
His guard opened the door and he practically leaped in, gazing at the far end of the arena, where the other door opened, and his opponent entered. A human, like him, and still not like him, a severe figure with a bald head and a long dark coat. There was something odd about this human, something that he knew, as if they had met before. But the memory could not get through the endless, all-encompassing urge to fight and win.
Gideon stepped closer to his opponent, crouched in anticipation of an attack. He would let the man make the first move, so he could assess his strategy and skills. Then he would find the weaknesses, and use them against him.
The enemy was patient as well, and waiting. They circled each other slowly, but while Gideon kept his low stance, his enemy stood upright, seeming oddly at ease, not at all prepared to defend himself. Only his face looked tense. If his enemy was this stupid, Gideon would be mad not to take advantage of it.
Gideon went for a low kick, meant to take his opponent off balance. Instead of hitting, it slipped before it reached its goal, as if it had encountered a slick barrier of some kind. He followed it instantly with a punch at his enemy's face, but it, as well, was turned aside by some invisible force.
"So, you really don't remember me at all, Matthew?" the man said, taking a few steps back. Gideon retreated as well, befuddled. No, he did not remember this person, who knew his first name. But as confused as he might have been, he still stayed on guard. Maybe that was what this surprising talk was for - to make him slip, so he would be an easier target. He would never do that.
Galen was not in a hurry. Even though he had had little talent for shields when he was younger, all that trouble had disappeared when he had merged with his tech. They could create a barrier strong enough to stop any physical blow. Matthew could not harm him, and he had at no time been worried about that. Instead, he was concerned about Matthew getting hurt when trying to attack.
All he needed was a chance to hit Matthew with the tranq tab. But even that was a challenge. Matthew was a skilled fighter to begin with, and the mind-control device was pushing him further, making him more alert and more eager to fight. He could see that his words had some impact, but not nearly enough. And he was afraid that they would make those overlooking the match suspicious, since they revealed that he had known at least something about Matthew prior to the match.
There was always the option of simply waiting for Matthew to grow tired, but it would be a long wait. Matthew had noticed that Galen was passive, and had retreated to slow circling again, wanting to get at least some kind of initiative from him. As they paced, Galen went through his plan again. The tab would put Matthew in a sort of hibernative state, slowing down his metabolism so much that anyone except for a very careful observer would take him for dead. The nanotechnology he had put in would also instantly start disabling the mind-control device.
The Drazi guards would probably not care to check whether Matthew was really dead or just nearly so. Galen had seen them carry away losers when they were not quite dead yet. The young Minbari had been breathing, but so badly injured that without help he had probably died within the hour. So, they would take Matthew wherever they stored the bodies. Soon after, they would come and take Galen, the winner of the match, to that place, so he could loot the body. That was one of the set ways of the game - the winner always got to loot the loser's body with his own hands. Perhaps the Drazi did not wish to touch the corpses themselves if it wasn't absolutely neccessary.
From there on, Galen's plan was slightly less certain. He did not know the exact build of the complex, nor the location of the storage room with the bodies. Nevertheless, once he got there, he would need to disable the guards and escape the building. Matthew would come out of the tranq tab-induced hibernation in half an hour. Galen would try to stall with the looting until that, so he would not need to carry him. He would also need to fetch the possessions he had been forced to give away, but tracing them was no problem, since his staff gave a strong signal that was easy to follow. He planned to do that hidden with a camouflage illusion, so he would not need to fight all the Drazi guards he encountered.
His plan was clear. Perhaps it would be better to get it over with as soon as possible. He only needed to do something that would catch Matthew's attention for a while, to take him off his guard.
Galen lifted his hand and created an illusion of a fireball. Unlike the flames he had used with Zesra, he made this one bright, but without any heat emanating from it. He did not want to burn away Matthew's eyebrows. He tossed it, and it erupted in a blinding flash right in front of Matthew's face. Matthew shrank back, dropping his defences. In that very moment, Galen struck the tranq tab on Matthew's neck. He tried to make the blow look like a spine-shattering one, while actually not harming his target at all.
Matthew went down. Galen stayed near him, crouched above the body like a vicious killer gloating over his victim. Actually, he was constantly scanning Matthew, and he was happy to see that the tab worked perfectly.
All his sensors were on Matthew now, and he had let his shield dissolve the very moment he saw Matthew fall. The silent whoosh of something cutting the air at great speed was the first thing that alerted him something was wrong. Before he had time to turn around completely, a sharp pain pierced his back.
In the fraction of a second Galen saw his mistake. If there was someone behind this game who could build scanners delicate enough to reveal his illusions, then they would certainly have scanners that would show whether a combatant truly was lethally harmed or not. They had instantly seen that Matthew was neither dead nor dying.
The air in the arena rang with words spoken in a deep, inhuman voice, strangely familiar, but certainly not Drazi. "There is only one survivor in each battle. You kill or you die. Failure to kill is punished by death. There can be no compassion for the opponent. We are disappointed with you, techno-mage. You have lost."
Since Galen had been about to turn around, the blade entered the left side of his back at an angle. He both felt and saw through his sensors how it sank in, slicing through skin and muscle, slipping neatly between his ribs, and cutting through his lung. He was sure it would penetrate his heart, causing so much damage that his organelles would have no chance of repairing it in time, but he never felt or saw it happen. He went out before his face hit the metallic floor, right next to Matthew's.
Author's note: Come on... It's me writing this. Don't say you didn't see it coming. ;-)