I jumped up out of the chair. “What!”
I ran my eyes over the cell. It hadn’t changed. It was still the silvery, greasy gray cube it had been before. But now it felt like evil lurked underneath the surface. No wonder the beer tasted so bad.
“The Don worlds have excelled at Maker technology,” T’Vel said, “There was only race more technologically advanced than the Dons. Unfortunately, their world died over a thousand years ago.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “How does an entire world die?” I asked.
T’Vel cocked her head from side to side. Her fingers gripped the bars so hard I could hear her joints creak.
“It had help,” she said.
Somewhere, somehow, the Dons had killed an entire world. That was what I was getting from her. Apparently the Dons were ruthless murderers. Like I hadn’t already guessed.
I remembered how Yen Kovan had relaxed toward the end of our little meeting. How she smiled and asked the Stickman if anyone had ever escaped. And he told her not to worry about it.
Yes, as long as he is here, she had said.
Now I know why chills ran over me when she said it. And why chills were running over me now. If I was sitting in the middle of Don tech, how hard would it be to arrange for something to happen?
Except she wasn’t going to send a computer bug down the line and have the room squash me or poison me. No, it was personal with her. She’d want to cut me apart herself. She’d want to feel the hot splash of my blood on her hands.
“Holy crap,” I said, “How do you think she’s going to do it?”
T’Vel made a tiny shake of her narrow head. The green, bug eyed orbs she had for eyes seemed to bulge out even more.
“Roy, I do not know what you speak of,” she said in a careful tone. The message was clear. Ears were everywhere and someone was probably paying attention.
I rubbed my fuzzy cheeks and pulled at my scraggly beard. I would have told the food thing to give me another beer, but all of a sudden I felt like going on a hunger strike. I almost got up on tippy toes to avoid touching the cell as much as possible. Stupid, of course. It had only been a few minutes. What could Yen Kovan do in such a small amount of time?
“Roy, please, perhaps we can talk through your problems and find a solution,” T’Vel said. She was doing a less-than-subtle pointing to her arm now and nodding her head.
Shit. Looked like there wasn’t no choice. I took a step toward her. Suddenly she looked up.
That’s when I noticed it. Silence. A silence so thick it made my skin crawl. This place was never quiet. There was always aliens shouting or singing or screaming up above me. But now…nothing.
“T’Vel. What is it?” I asked.
Was the attack coming already?
I heard another sound. The whine of a motor. A few seconds later the platform came into view across the chasm. Standing on it was a Stickman. It was probably the same one from earlier. Not that I could tell. Far as I knew, there wasn’t any way to tell them apart.
The platform came to a stop. T’Vel had pivoted to watch it, moving to the edge of the cell opening. I was a little surprised she didn’t run away like she had last time. Maybe she was terrified of the Stickman. I imagine fear was the only thing that could have silenced the noisy masses above me.
I expected the Stickman to send the stupid ice chest thing to get me. Instead he came to me.
At first it was hard to see what he was doing in the dim light of the chasm. It became real clear when the sticks started arcing over the chasm and hitting the metal catwalk in front of my cell.
Squeaking and chirping, the sticks poured over, quickly assembling into the vague humanoid shape I’d seen the Stickman use before. I got the feeling the Stickmen only used that shape for our comfort. To keep us from completely freaking out at the unholy sight of them.
Not that it didn’t give me an epic case of the willies anyway.
The last of the Sticks flowed over from the platform and the Stickman stood for a few moments, pulling his sticks together, squeaking like a parade of rusty bicycles.
“Roy DeHass,” it said in its buzzing voice, “I have reason to believe your life is in danger.”
That was when things started exploding.
Twenty-Four
My cell shook and the bars rattled with the force of the explosion. The blast wave knocked me on my butt. T’Vel flattened herself to the wall. The Stickman seemed to lose whatever was holding him together. All his sticks and rods fell in a pile on the metal catwalk.
Chunks of rock fell past my cell. One good sized boulder hit the catwalk and put a mighty dent in it near T’Vel. She let out a scream and lost her footing. All four of her arms shot out for the bars. And missed.
She went over the side.
Another explosion rocked the prison. It seemed to come from above. At least that was the direction the rocks was falling from.
The video screen in my cell flared to life. It flashed red, orange and green.
A voice followed the flashing. “Alert. Alert. Alert. Environmental shell has been breached. Proceed to the center of your cell and await containment.”
I was about to do just that when I spotted yellow fingers gripping the edge of the catwalk. T’vel!
I ran to the bars and yanked at them. Sadly I hadn’t gained super powers and the bars didn’t move. If the bars could have, they would have laughed at my puny attempts at heroism.
The smell of chili peppers and cinnamon were strong, but there was another smell, too. A whiff of something like ammonia. The top of T’Vel’s head poked up for a moment, then was gone. Her fingers still gripped the edge, though.
Movement caught my eye.
One of the flying ice chests dropped down and sped toward my cell. An electric shock went through my hands and I leapt back from the bars. The ice chest thing came to a bouncing halt in front of my cell. The bars started their retreat to the other side, clinking against each other. Chill air came in and washed over me.
“Terran Roy DeHass,” the thing started to say, “It is imperative–”
A chunk of rock smashed into it from above. The machine crashed to the metal catwalk with a horrible clatter. I ran up to it and kicked it over the edge. Whatever it had to say, I wasn’t interested.
I hustled over to where T’Vel hung by her fingertips. Hard to tell with them bulgy eyes and wolf snout, but she was looking kinda panicked. I was having similar feelings myself.
I reached down and grabbed her wrist, then took hold of the cell opening with my other hand. I pulled hard and she came right up. Either she was a lot lighter than she looked, or I was stronger.
She scrambled up on the catwalk, her eyes wide and her sides heaving.
“Roy, there is much danger here!” she said.
“You mean more than there already is?” I asked.
I peered over the edge. The chasm yawned below us. I took a look up and didn’t see much different. How the hell were we going to get out of here?
“Roy, behind you!” T’Vel said.
I whipped around to find the Stickman reassembling himself. Apparently recovering from whatever knocked him out.
The sticks rose from the catwalk, squeaking, chirping and groaning. They started to form the human shape.
T’Vel grabbed my arm. “Come, we must go,” she said.
Another explosion rocked the prison. A shower of rocks fell toward us. I yanked T’Vel back into the cell opening. Stones, huge and small hurtled past us on the way to the bottom of the chasm. Another boulder smashed into the catwalk, tearing a great hole in it and taking the Stickman with it.
The ammonia smell was getting thicker. Strong enough to make me cough.
A glance above showed a mist forming up at the top of the prison. Suddenly I remembered the prison’s anti escape system. Either it had been activated, or it was leaking. Either way we were going to die horrible deaths.
I looked to T’Vel. There had to be a better option than death by fro
zen ammonia or death by fall into a bottomless pit.
“You know a way out?” I asked her.
She nodded and pointed to the bottomless pit.
Crap.
“That’s where the Stickman went you know,” I said.
“Hope lies below,” she said, “Death waits above.”
Crap, crap, crap.
“Let’s go then,” I said.
She leapt into the hole that had been ripped in the catwalk. For a second I thought she was a goner, then I saw she’d landed on the dented catwalk below. She was a lot more graceful than I was. I lowered myself down, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the jagged edges. I got a few more scratches on my front to go with the ones on my back.
T’Vel grabbed my hand and pulled me along the catwalk. As we ran, the cells lit up as we passed. Like I suspected, they were all empty. I’d been separated from the general prison population. Not that I minded.
We reached the end of the catwalk. I looked for a ladder or stairs, but there was nothing but rough rock. I glanced down at the chasm again. I hoped she wasn’t expecting us to drop down to the next catwalk again and again.
She pulled something out of her tunic. It looked a stubby screwdriver. She knelt and put in into a hole in the catwalk. Something hummed and a disk swung out from under the catwalk. The disk wasn’t much bigger than a trash can lid. It hung in open air, unsupported, as far as I could see.
T’Vel stepped on it and beckoned me.
My boys tried to crawl up inside my belly at the thought of stepping onto that trashcan lid hanging over a great big hole.
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“Hurry,” she said. All four of her hands beckoned to me.
A rumble started above us. Along with a distant scream like a steaming kettle. From the gray mist at the top of the prison came another explosion. This time I saw orange fire burst from the center of the cloud. A shower of rocks fell, smaller than before.
Then something else emerged from the mist. At first it was a black dot. As it fell toward us, I could see a person shaped figure.
“Roy, now! It is the Don!” T’Vel cried.
That did it. I jumped on the disk. It gave a heart stopping wobble, then settled flat. T’Vel wrapped her big arms around me, pressing me against her tunic. The spicy chili pepper smell of her filled my nostrils. Enough to overpower the ammonia and alien sewage. I put my arms around her narrow waist. My ear was against her chest and I heart discordant thumps, like she had a four stroke engine in her chest instead of a heart.
Suddenly we were falling. Icy air whipped past my face. I’d wished I’d had time to put my gloves on. From the corner of my eye I saw the prison cells rush past. Was this trash can lid we were on some kind of elevator? Or maybe the scariest amusement park ride in history.
A white-hot beam of energy slashed by us.
I’d been around this space stuff long enough to recognize a plasma blast. The Don, if that’s what it was, was packing heat.
From the corner of my eye a black figure appeared. I only had a moment to look before it fired again. It looked to be a female figure in some kind of form-fitting black armor that covered it from head to toe. It had a large backpack on and what looked like cannons strapped to its forearms.
It matched our speed. HoverED across from us. It raised it’s arms. White glowed at the ends of the cannons.
“Duck!” I shouted.
T’Vel’s head whipped around. All the way around. She cried out and one of her little hands pressed a control box I hadn’t seen her carrying.
The disk stopped so fast it almost ran my feet up through my ass.
Hot plasma screamed beneath us as the Don fell past.
An instant later we were moving down again. This time even faster.
I risked a look down. We were still a long way from the bottom. If there was one. Did the prison go all the way to the Pluto’s core?
The armored Don flew up past us. Then turned and came back after us.
I really couldn’t see this ending well. The Don had armor and plasma cannons. We had a trash can lid elevator. It really didn’t seem fair.
The Don matched our speed again. It raised its plasma cannons.
Then something hit it.
A rain of sticks pummeled the Don. KnockED it away from us.
Plasma fire arced out wildly. We ducked as a blast ran over our head.
The sticks wrapped themselves around the Don armor, cocooning it. The stick-wrapped Don fell away from us, tumbling. It smacked into the far wall. Some sticks fell away and for a moment I could see the Don’s black, featureless helmet.
I gave it the finger.
Then the sticks covered it again and it tumbled away from us.
T’Vel’s arms squeezed me tighter. Almost enough to keep me from breathing. I glanced down. Jagged rocks were approaching. Fast.
Actually, we were approaching them. Really, really fast.
I felt her fiddle with the control box in her hand and we started slowing. We were coming to the end of the seemingly endless rows of prison cells. Disproving the notion I had that they went on forever.
The trashcan lid abruptly stopped. My shins were going to hurt for a week after that kind of abuse.
T’vel shoved me off the disk and onto the metal catwalk. It was just like the one I’d been staring at for the past few months. Except below this one was jagged black rocks. There was a damp odor in the air, like the dank depths of the river bank caves Buck and I had played in when we were kids.
Something crunched off in the distance. I caught a glimpse of the stick encased Don crashing into the jagged rocks. Sticks went flying, spinning through the air.
T’Vel pushed me forward. “Hurry, hurry,” she said.
Cells lit up as we passed. Empty, empty, empty. Did the Blinkys and Stickmen really expect to fill this prison eventually?
A stupid question. All prisons reached capacity eventually. If there was space, the cops would find crimes to to punish.
We came to the last cell in the row. It stayed dark. The bars glistened in the low light. Which didn’t penetrate far enough to let me see what was in it. T’vel knelt at the edge of the catwalk and fished underneath it with one of her large arms.
“It has to be here,” she said.
I hoped whatever it was wasn’t lethal to me. Or opened any doors for things that wanted to kill me.
The screech of metal echoed across the bottom of the chasm. The Don armor rose up from the jagged rocks. Its plasma cannons sent out arcs of white hot death. I dropped to the catwalk as one shot over my head and sliced into the catwalk above me.
Before the Don could shoot again, the sticks swarmed it again. The armored Don staggered back, swinging its arms.
“You might want to hurry,” I said, “I don’t think that Stickman can hold the Don much longer.”
“Got it! Thank Havva!” she said.
She rolled up on the catwalk, a plastic wrapped bundle in her hand. Her long fingers tore at the wrap. Inside was another control box and a key like thing, similar to the key she used to call the trash can lid elevator. There was also some folded papers. T’Vel stuffed the papers inside her tunic then scrambled to her feet.
She moved to the unlit cell held up the control box. It looked bigger and not as well put together than the other box she held. It looked crude, like it had been made by hand. There were actually some wires sticking out the sides. She tapped the surface and growled.
“Come on!”
The thing stayed dark.
“Power source is dead,” she said. She flipped it over and ripped open a panel.
I glanced over my shoulder. The crunching, screeching sounds were getting closer. Were we going to get killed because someone forgot to charge the batteries on T’Vel’s what’s-it?
T’Vel took the other control box she had and ripped it open. She pulled wires from it and stuck them inside the homemade looking box. A moment later the box flared to life. Symbols appeared on the
screen. T’vel made a noise that sounded like relief and started tapping the screen in a rapid sequence.
The bars of the dark cell started sliding aside with the usual clinking sound. Inside the cell something hummed to life. Lights flared on. But not from the ceiling. From the thing that squatted in the cell.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“Escape,” T’Vel said.
If my cousin Skeeter (yeah, I actually have a cousin named Skeeter), if he had decided to make himself a spaceship out of spare parts he had lying around, it woulda looked something like like the thing sitting in that prison cell.
Now cousin Skeeter was a fine mechanic, if your expectations were limited, or if you had strong faith. Self taught, Skeeter had some creative notions on how parts should fit together. If he ever came near my truck, he’d get a backside full of buckshot, I’m just saying.
I recall one time he made a jalopy out of two Yamaha dirt bikes and an avocado green washing machine. The thing ran like the devil in a tent full of Jesus jumpers. But it was an unholy alliance of hardware that reminded me of the thing T’Vel was wanting me to get into.
She run over to it and opened a door. The thing hissed and creaked as the door swung aside. She beckoned me. I shook my head.
“You’re crazy,” I said, “That thing’s a deathtrap.”
Honestly, it looked like someone had welded together some different sized metal packing crates, then slapped on some rocket engines in the back. There was a tiny, crooked rectangle of a window near the front. The thing didn’t look big enough to hold two of us, much less fly.
“It is safe,” T’Vel said, “Come, Roy, there is no time.”
A beam of white hot plasma hit the cell next to us. Molten metal splashed my way and I ducked inside the cell. Some of it must have hit T’vel. She yelped and slapped at her neck. Then T’vel grabbed me, and before I could protest, shoved me in the space jalopy.
She slammed the hatch closed and dropped into a human sized seat. What I got looked like an office chair welded to the deck. There were no seat belts I could see.
T’Vel slapped a dark panel in front of her seat. The panel flared to life. Numbers and symbols appeared. The screen flickered. T’vel hit the side of the console and the image steadied. Her fingers flew over the screen. A rumble started behind us. It vibrated the deck under my feet.
Eclipsing Vengeance Page 12
