Pax Galactica - A Space Opera

Epilogue

Decker never had a problem wearing his ranger's cloak on alien worlds, but wearing it home made it feel like a costume. Like he was showing off. To put it simply it made him feel like a sprellhead. He should have left it on the ship. He self-consciously adjusted it on his shoulders.

Coming to watch the Deathrace Centauri Ring Chalice sounded like fun. It should have been fun. It was a perfect day for a Deathrace and nothing used to get Decker more energized. He just couldn't get invested in what was happening up on the track. It was all so meaningless. An empty pantomime of danger by people who would never know what it was actually like.

One of the racers was knocked from the track and fell a hundred meters to the ground along with his technicolor-shark-themed racer. The audience, save for Decker, reacted in horror.

The glowing track spiraled round and round in rapidly narrowing circles until it finally came to a stop on the ground once again. The racers at the head of the race went hurtling past the finish line, jostling for position right up until the last second. The winner, by a nose, was Thane Fulvous.

According to the feeds Decker had tuned into Thane was winning races left and right. He wondered if Thane had come by any of those wins legitimately.

People from the stands started spilling into the field, surrounding the winners. They never would have done something like that back when Decker was a racer. He wouldn't have stood for something like that. Thane seemed to be enjoying it. He was really in his element.

Let him have it, thought Decker.

He started to push his way through the crowd, hoping to get to the exit.

"Sam?" came a familiar voice. "Sam Decker?"

Decker felt his implant being pinged. He should have set it to private.

"It is you!" yelled Thane Fulvous, still wearing a Saturn Starlifting racing suit. "Hey everyone, it's Sam Decker! How've you been kov? I haven't seen you in a star's age!"

Thane had the group's full attention, and so now almost everyone was looking at Decker. People stepped away from him. It was like he was on stage.

Decker sighed.

"Hi Thane," he said. "I was just leaving."

"Nonsense, nonsense!" said Thane. "I just won the Chalice! I'm going to have a big sprelling party. I insist you come."

Thane laughed.

"You're not afraid I'm going to beat you up again are you?" he asked.

"What?" asked Decker.

Thane ignored him. He was talking to the crowd now.

"Two years ago Old Sam here sucker punched me a party. It was the first year I beat him at this particular race and he was a sore loser about. So afterward I came and found him, challenged him to a real fight. A fair fight. Man on man, test of skill like. I beat him up so bad that he ran away off-ring and the peacekeepers gave me a peace bond against him."

Decker had to give it to Thane: he was making the lie fit the evidence.

"Yeah it's too bad I'm bound not to hurt him so we can never fight again, huh Sam? I bet you'd like a rematch almost as much as I would."

<Just so you know,> Decker's Suit informed him, <I can jam the sensors of all peacekeeper drones to within about a 50 click radius, weather dependent. Not that I'm advocating for violence I'm just making sure you're aware of my many capabilities.>

<I'm fine,> replied Decker.

"Thane, I apologize. I should have said that a long time ago. I never should have beat you up at that party. Or any of those other times. It's no small thing to have a world without violence. What I did was wrong."

"Ha, look at that!" said Thane to his audience. "I literally beat the fight out of him. Remember this guy? Sam Decker. Used to be something of a racer. People were scared of him. One round of fisticuffs with me and now he's a kitten. A baby kitten."

"A kitten is already a baby," said a well-dressed woman standing close to Thane.

"So he is!" shouted Thane, and he laughed and laughed.

Nobody knew why it was funny but most of them laughed.

"Sure Thane," said Decker.

He started to leave again, squeezing through the crowd. This time people made space for him.

"I'm so tough I'm like space ranger or something!" Thane shouted as Decker left. Everyone laughed again.

Decker left the racing ground, dodging more people going in the other direction.

<You win,> Decker signaled. <It was just as boring as you said it'd be. Come get me.>

<You're not going to go to the after party?> Ophelia replied. <I was still willing to try that.>

<Nah. All parties are exactly the same,> signaled Decker.

<You're right,> signaled Ophelia. <I'll be there in a sec.>

Ophelia engaged the Partisan's autopilot and it locked on to the signal from Decker's implant. It dropped from the sky and landed softly in front of the ranger, who got in.