Page 52 of Blightfall

She shrugged. “Probably, since he’ll have to fight everybody.”

That was…not super informative. “Everybody?”

“Yeah, sure,” she said. “There’s a whole universe of aliens out there, right? And they all want to kill us. When our fighters get good enough, they ascend to Elysium and join the war for humanity. It’s been going on forever, but they say we’re finally winning.”

“I hope we are,” I said. “It’s scary to think about.”

A whole universe of aliens that all wanted to kill us. That didn’t sound like Superiority rhetoric—more like propaganda from the human wars, when our ancestors’ ever-expanding empire put them in conflict with other alien species.

Did these people think the human wars were still happening? If so, our theory about Ivy abducting their best fighters to be Superiority bodyguards was probably wrong. A bodyguard who’d trained their whole life to destroy all aliens wouldn’t be of much use to them.

But that meant we still had no idea where the people of Blightfall were really taken. There was no war out there for them to fight, and we certainly hadn’t encountered any armadas of humans ready to help us when we’d defeated the Superiority.

“What are scion fighters going to do against aliens?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it be better to train as pilots?”

Liba shrugged. “You need all kinds of fighters in a war this big. I mean, that’s the whole reason there are lots of human outposts, all specializing in a different kind of fighting. Here we train melee fighters, but there are other planets training up pilots, artillery, navy, ground troops. Everything we need to protect ourselves from the monsters out there.”

Stars, were there really outposts of humans all over the galaxy? It seemed impossible—and still raised the question of where all the fighters were going.

“Have you ever met anyone from one of the other outposts?” I asked.

Liba looked at me like I was crazy. “Of course not. But once our fighters get to Elysium, they all team up to protect us.”

This was likely a story told to these humans to keep them feeding fighters to Elysium, whatever that really was. And if Ivy was involved, it was probably a Superiority plot to exploit them, the wheels of which were still turning even though the rest of the machine was gone.

I had questions. So many questions. But I risked sounding too clueless if I continued to press, and I’d already raised Liba’s suspicions. I needed to find someone else to ask, someone who knew a bit more.

“I’d sure like to talk to one of the gladiators,” I said, “and find out more about what they do. But everyone was trying to meet them after the fight was over, so I didn’t get a chance.”

“I know,” Liba said. “It’s always like that. I shook Kalia’s hand once, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been. I hear a lot of them hang around the Angry Badger in the third shift. It’s a pub over in the grain district. They mostly show up because people will buy them food and drinks, but it’s a good time to ask questions, get them to sign replica weapons, that kind of thing.”

“That sounds amazing,” I said.

“It probably is,” Liba said. “I’ve never been. My mum won’t let me go.”

A whistle blew near the top of the coliseum, and Liba startled. “We’d better keep working,” she said. “If they decide we’re slacking, they’ll kick us out.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said as Liba scurried away to another section with her broom.

I picked up two of Alanik’s and Gilaf’s dirt piles before I managed to casually pass Arturo again. “I have information,” I told him.

“Good job,” Arturo said, looking over at Liba, who was definitely still sweeping and not running off to tell the authorities that we were alien invaders. “Here, take a rag and tell me what you learned.”

We both moved down to the next set of benches, and I set about scrubbing something orange and sticky—some kind of jam?—while telling him about my conversation with Liba.

“If they’re amassing an army to fight in the human wars,” Arturo said, “where do the gladiators go after they walk through the door? If no one sees them again, are they being transported out of the city somehow? We haven’t seen any evidence of hyperdrive technology, and if they’d used one today, Alanik would have sensed it.”

“I don’t know,” I said, “and Liba didn’t know either. We could meet up with some of the gladiators, though. They might know more.”

“I agree that’s our best lead,” Arturo said. “But I also want to get a look behind that gate.” He glanced over his shoulder to the doorway to Elysium, still watched over by arena security. “We can try tonight, when all the workers have gone home.”

“Do you think…” I started. “Could the End Times have anything to do with our arrival?”

“The timing is suspicious,” Arturo said. “We arrive and Ivy attacks us. She thinks we’re inspection forces from the Superiority. And suddenly the end is nigh and she needs to send as many gladiators to Elysium as possible.”

“It happened after she realized we were human,” I said. “Maybe she tried to contact her superiors and realized that we aren’t Superiority inspectors after all.”

“That’s a possibility,” Arturo said. “She could be collecting fighters to defend herself against us.”