Submitted for the January 2025 prompt: Galactic Brackets

Even after fifty races (since being abducted from Earth), I still get shaky with nerves every time they shove me into the starting box. My odds of winning or dying are usually about equal, so who could blame me?

 

Today, the stakes will be higher than ever — a chance to win my freedom. I have a plan, but it’s sketchy. Fingers crossed.

 

As the countdown starts, I pat my pockets, making sure all my secret weapons are in place. Regional championship ring, check. Ru-ru fruit, check. Little baggie of alien pee, check.

 

I’m never the fastest runner out there, but I’m devious and adaptable and have a knack for making mayhem and having it work out in my favor.

 

They don’t call me the Terran Terror for nothing.

 

Just before the gun fires, I smack the wall of my starting box. A series of terrifying roars issue from the racer in the next lane. I call him Rory (because I can’t pronounce his real name), and he’s a baar (a huge, bear-shaped alien that usually eats guys like me). I’m pretty sure he just said, “Let’s do this!”

 

The gun fires, the boxes open, and we’re off.

 

* * *

 

Four of the five of us competing in today’s grand championship race fly out onto the track. The fifth does not. Sheesh, I thought she’d start slow, but I thought she’d start.

 

The absentee racer’s name is Sarla, and after last night’s champions banquet, I taught her that alcohol is good for more than fueling engines. I may have forgotten to warn her about hangovers. My bad.

 

I throw down the bag of pee as I settle into my stride, and it bursts open at my feet. And WOWZA does it stink!

 

To my left, Rory is wrestling the centipoid who drew the inside lane. The many-legged alien has a hard shell that I’m not sure even a baar can crack. We’re about to find out.

 

The crowd cheers, loving it. The centipoids are constantly invading their neighbors and mucking up the peacefulness of the galaxy. In this guy’s last race, they peppered him with drink containers from the stands after he won. Nobody wants to see him become the grand champion.

 

To my right — and now way down the track in front of me — is the early leader, a twitch-tail. Their species are legendary racers, accounting for half of the grand champions over the last twenty seasons. He’s built like a deer, and he runs like one too!

 

The roaring suddenly stops a few seconds later, and then the centipoid goes zipping past me, apparently unscathed. That’s bad news. The good news: he’s too desperate to catch up with the leader to waste time murdering me on his way by.

 

Because I can’t think of anything else to try, I snatch a small stone from the surface of the track and gun it like a major leaguer. It’s a miraculous shot, hitting the centipoid right in his armored butt segment. It bounces off harmlessly, of course, but he slams on the brakes, skidding to a halt.

 

To my delight, he then stamps over to the edge of the track and starts hissing at the crowd, obviously thinking one of them threw something. And then someone does. Drink containers start raining down on the enraged arthropod, prompting him to scale part way up the barrier fence. If he leaves the race surface, he’ll be disqualified.

 

Just then, Rory comes loping past me. He’s hyperventilating and slobbering everywhere, obviously exhausted from his early exertion. But he’s got just enough gas in the tank to give the centipoid a big bear shove that sends him over the fence. And out of the race.

 

Because it needs to look like I’m trying to win, I sprint past Rory as he pauses to catch his breath.

 

I look up just in time to avoid being trampled by the twitch-tail, who’s running faster than ever, but now in the opposite direction — back toward the starting line. Or, more accurately, toward that stinky pee.

 

Twitch-tails are pretty smart except during their mating season. One whiff of that pheromone-filled urine, and his evolved brain turned right off. Oh, man, is he going to be disappointed!

 

Wanna know how I collected the sample from a twitch-tail doe in heat?

 

No. You don’t.

 

I keep running, but not too fast. As the finish line comes into view, I pretend to kick a rut and go down in a pile. I struggle back to my feet, limp along for a bit, and then flop down again. The whole time I’m cursing Rory’s sad stamina. Come on, man, catch up already.

 

And then he does. The crowd gasps as he bears down on me. He catches my race jersey in his teeth and starts rag-dolling me back and forth. And the whole time he’s wheezing and slobbering and laughing his baar ass off like this is the funniest shit ever.

 

I, on the other hand, am hoping this performance isn’t going to leave me with chronic back problems.

 

When he drops me, I land on my back. I roll over once to squish the ru-ru fruit in my pocket, and then again to show its bloody juice gushing out all over the place. Then I play dead.

 

The crowd erupts as Rory wins.

 

* * *

 

The guy from the cleanup crew delivers me to the port instead of the morgue, just like we agreed. I hate giving up my regional championship ring as payment, but it’s all I had to offer.

 

The captain of the ore hauler I board thinks the slave races are unethical, so he’s dropping me off at Earth for free. Which I appreciate.

 

It’ll be hard to settle back into normal life after all this, but I can’t wait to see my family and my friends again. There really is no place like home.