by Kal Spriggs
Simon shrugged, “I don’t know. I just know his type.”
“Right,” Mike nodded. He glanced around at the others. “We need to get more information and we need tools and weapons.” He looked at Simon again. “The pit is where they haul in the salvage?”
Simon nodded.
“Once we get the opportunity, Pixel, I want you to get in there and see what tools you can get… and if there’s anything we can salvage to make into weapons.”
“Ariadne, you, Anubus and I will scope out these work sleds they mentioned. I doubt they’ve any legs on them, but we might be able to use them somehow,” Mike said. He realized that he’d taken charge, but no one argued at the moment. Count my blessings later, he thought. “Rastar, and Eric, you two work with Simon, find out everything you can about the guards, how they’re armed, and how they might react to whatever Fontaine has planned.”
“Food, now?” Run asked.
“Yeah, let’s get food… but someone needs to stand by here to make sure no one messes with our suits,” Mike said.
“I grabbed a bite earlier,” Anubus said. “I’ll wait here.”
Mike felt his stomach overturn at the reminder. “Right.” He wondered at Anubus’s passivity at his orders until he glanced at the alien. The Wrethe’s penetrating stare suggested it would have words with him when they had privacy.
He started to lead the way out, but Rastar the Ghornath put out a large arm and stepped in front of him. “Let me lead. If food is as precious as our new partner has suggested, it will be similar to the refugee camps I grew up in. I know how to handle this.”
Mike frowned. They would go and get their food, probably under observation from the Chxor, how dangerous would it be? “Okay… sure.”
Rastar led the way out of the compartment. Simon pointed the way back towards where they’d entered and then led the way into the room that lay nearest the airlock.
A cluster of people stood there, some in line, but most milled around. Some looked gaunt, on the edge of starvation. Many looked past that edge, and Mike looked away from the hollowness that lay in their eyes. Many of these people no longer lived, he realized. They’d found their own personal hell and while their bodies functioned, their souls had fled.
“Hold up there, big fella, you got to pay the toll before you get food,” a man said. Mike saw the spider web tattoo on the side of his neck. Right, of course Fontaine’s men have a racket with the food, he thought. After all, it wouldn’t do for their boss to have to actually work.
“My friend, we just arrived,” Rastar said. He had gone a light shade of pink, and he slapped the other man on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him. “What is this toll? Is it like a club membership?”
Mike saw the man reach inside his coveralls, but another man put a restraining hand on his shoulder. The other man spoke, “Sort of like that. You’re the fellows that Mister Fontaine spoke with earlier, right?”
Mike spoke up, “Yeah, that’s us.”
“Well, then. Just for today, you don’t have to pay, since you just got in. In the future, it’s a ten percent by weight of your daily allotment… and it increases if you miss a day.” The man said. “You can pay Armand here tomorrow morning. If you want a special deal, you talk to me, I’m Pierre”
“Does everyone pay, even the sick and weak?” Rastar asked. His skin shade had gone a deeper tone, almost red. Mike remembered then that Ghornath skin tones signaled their emotions. He also remembered this Ghornath had a temper. Mike wanted to say something, to interrupt, but he did not know if he might set the big alien off.
“Yeah, everyone pays… one way or another,” Armand grinned evilly. “The woman there, she’s pretty enough to pay her way on her back. You’re not my type big guy, so you got to pay with food.”
“I see,” Rastar’s skin had darkened, and Mike saw Pierre’s eyes narrow as he put together the Ghornath’s coloring and the topic of conversation. “What do we gain from this fee, then… your protection?” The Ghornath’s deep voice had dropped an octave. Mike could almost feel it in his feet.
Mike grabbed Rastar’s lower left limb, “Rastar, let’s just go, alright.” He did not want to start a riot, not with Fontaine’s men, not right now when they didn’t have any weapons.
“Yeah, maybe you should walk away… friend,” Armand said.
“You are right.” Rastar said. His skin darkened to a crimson, though, and Mike could feel the alien’s muscles tense on his arm. “But if I did what I should do, then I would always wonder what this felt like.”
Rastar’s upper left arm came around in a huge fist. The blow caught Armand in the face and threw him back into the wall. A second later he surged forward at Pierre and the pair of men behind him.
Mike saw Pierre duck under one wild swing and saw him draw a shank out of his sleeve. He stabbed Rastar twice as he went by, but the Ghornath did not even slow. He snatched both the other goons, picked them up with two hands each, and slammed them together hard enough that they went limp in his hands.
Mike saw a half dozen more of Fontaine’s men boil out of the crowd. He ducked under a wild swing from one and then let out a curse as another slashed a knife over the back of his hand.
He saw Crowe circle around behind that man, but before he could attack him, another tackled the bigger man. One of Fontaine’s men leapt at Ariadne, but she dove to the side, and Mike saw him strike Eric instead.
The entire room dissolved into chaos. Rastar seemed to be at the middle of it, and his bellows of rage echoed off the walls as he threw men left and right. His four arms pummeled any of Fontaine’s men too slow to escape him.
As a pair of armed men backed Mike against a wall, he shouted, “This is your idea of handling this?”
Rastar did not answer, but a body sailed through the air to knock both men over. Mike started to make a break for the exit. He skidded to a halt though as two Chxor guards piled out of the airlock, their riot guns at the low ready. Mike’s forward momentum made him fall backwards and slide on his ass almost to their feet.
A speaker in the overhead crackled to life, “Cease your riot or you will be fired on.”
One of the men, at this point Mike didn’t know if he were just another prisoner or one of Fontaine’s men, let out a shout and ran at the guards. The nearest guard triggered his riot gun. Mike heard the sharp crack and a whine as the flechettes went right over his head.
The man let out a scream and dropped to the deck. Almost everyone in the room froze, except for one of Fontaine’s men in midair and Rastar the Ghornath.
The Ghornath turned to face the Chxor guards. Mike saw a dozen punctures in his hide, and a number of bruises. Yet his skin remained the red color of rage. He started to take a step towards the Chxor, “You bastards! You keep people like livestock, you exterminated ninety percent of my race…” Mid sentence he transitioned into his native tongue. Mike only recognized any of it when it trailed into a series of obscenities.
In the chaos of Rastar’s bellows and the moans of the injured, Mike barely heard a slight clink, almost like a silenced pistol or an air gun.
Rastar paused. He looked over his shoulder, “Hey you…” Then he toppled.
Another pair of Chxor guards had emerged from the airlock. “All prisoners will lie on the floor. Any who are too injured to work will be processed. Identify yourself if you can no longer work.”
No one raised their hands. The Chxor gestured at a pair of prisoners near the door. “You will retrieve the dead.” They looked down at Mike, “Get out of the way.”
Mike edged back into the crowd. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Run the Chxor hidden beneath a metal table beyond where Rastar lay unconscious.
He looked over at Ariadne, who sat nearby. Mike could tell she had put things together too. “Maybe I misjudged the little bastard, good thing he had that tranquilizer gun,” she said quietly enough to barely reach his ears.
“Yeah, pretty quick thinking on his part,” Mike said. A firefight i
n the confines of the room would have left many bystanders injured. Bystanders like himself. “But I think this little incident gives us some important information.”
“What, don’t piss off Rastar?” Crowe asked, from Mike’s other side. “I think I’ll make an effort to remember that in the future, it might be hard, mind you, but I’ll try.”
Mike looked back at the four Chxor guards, who had withdrawn to the hallway to let the prisoners on cleanup detail work. “Well, that,” he agreed. “But also what the Chxor reaction force is likely to do. Two guards through the airlock. Two more right after. How they’re armed… and that this room, at least, is under observation.”
“You think they have the barracks bugged?” Ariadne asked.
Mike frowned. “No. I don’t think so. Probably just cameras to make sure we don’t get up to any mischief like this.” Mike looked over at the guards. “And if we’d known that before, we could have used this to stage our escape. As it is… well, I just hope Fontaine doesn’t kill us all as soon as they leave.”
* * *
Fontaine’s men seemed unwilling to take up where they left off before the interruption. Mike went to check Rastar’s wounds first. The Ghornath seemed alright at first glance. His wide mouth lay open in a snore and a puddle of drool lay on the floor under his cat-like face. Mike noticed the small dart lodged in his back. He pulled it out and then walked over to where Run still cowered under a table.
“Good job there, it could have really gone bad with those guards,” Mike said.
Run nodded, “I did well?” His big eyes stared up at Mike, and for a second, it almost seemed like the little Chxor felt some emotion. Th moment passed as the Chxor spoke, “Yes, it would be suboptimal if the big one resulted in our termination. I would not have the opportunity to conduct further research.”
Mike grimaced, so much for emotion, “Yeah, suboptimal. How many of those darts do you have?”
Run peered up at him, “I have four more. Two which will work on humans, one which might work on a Wrethe, and one that works on Chxor physiology. I have to be careful not to get them confused, otherwise they could be lethal.”
“Why is that a bad thing?” Mike asked. “I’m fine with you accidentally killing a Chxor guard with one.”
“No, lethal to me, if I attempt to use them on the guards. They will have no effect on the guards,” Run said. “That would be suboptimal. If I am terminated I will have no further opportunities-”
“To conduct your research, yeah, I can see that,” Mike said. “Well don’t get them mixed up.” He passed the dart over, “You have any more that will work on Ghornath? Their physiology is similar to humans, we can eat a lot of the same things.”
“I will have to test that. Can I shoot the Ghornath again when he wakes? I will be certain to take notes.”
“No…” Mike said. “We might need him. Can you refill this dart, though?”
“If I have a proper lab, and my notes, and-”
“We’ll see what we can do,” Mike said. He saw Ariadne had moved over nearby. “You alright?” He kept his right hand clamped over the slash on the back of his left hand. A little blood still flowed, but the wound looked superficial.
She nodded. “A little bruised up. But Rastar took most of them on. I’m just surprised he didn’t kill anyone.”
“He didn’t?” Mike asked. He remembered how the Ghornath had thrown men around. “That’s pretty damned amazing. Though with how Fontaine will be after us now, I wish he’d thinned the numbers a bit.” He glanced over at where Fontaine’s men had clustered after the brawl. Several of them had marks from their encounter with the group. Yet nine of them remained of the ten from the fight. The Chxor guards had done the only killing.
He noticed the others of his group had begun to cluster around the unconscious Ghornath. “Everyone alright?” He looked around. Crowe sported a black eye, and Eric had a gash down one arm, but the others looked more or less unharmed.
“Uh… what happened?” Rastar’s deep voice asked. “I feel like I drank an entire two liter.” He sat up, and shook his big head.
“What’s your poison?” Mike asked. He had heard that Ghornath could share human food supplies, he wondered if their taste ran to similar areas.
“Cola, preferably Coca Cola Classic,” Rastar said. “It’s the good stuff, made in Centauri…”
“Uh, that’s just sugar, water and some carbonation,” Pixel said. “That’s not like alcohol. He wanted to know what you drink for fun.”
“You humans are strange,” Rastar said. He peered at Pixel, “Why are there two of you…”
Mike shook his head, “He’s clearly suffering a bit from the dart. Rastar, you started a fight with Fontaine’s men, you put us in a bad situation with them. Fontaine will almost certainly have us killed now, or he’ll look bad.” He stared at the big alien, hopeful that he would understand.
Rastar’s hide went through several colors, then settled on blue, “I’m sorry. I let my temper get the best of me. It’s just… I cannot stand bullies and I hate those who prey upon the weak, as these scum did. As sorry as I am… I would do it again, because bullies like them deserve to be reminded that people can stand up to them.”
“Well spoken, cat,” a woman’s voice said from nearby. “But even Fontaine’s men aren’t as bad as the Chxor.”
Mike turned, “Will people stop doing that!”
“Doing what?” The woman asked. She stood shorter than Mike, with closely cropped red hair. She had a symbol of some sort painted on the left breast of her environmental suit. She also had a livid scar across her right cheek and bright green eyes. The determined jut of her jaw suggested she had a temper to match her hair.
“Sneaking up on us and interjecting on the conversation, is what I think he would say,” Ariadne said. She rolled her eyes at the other woman. “And who are you?”
“I’m Mandy,” the redhead said. “This is Miranda,” she jerked a hand over her shoulder and pointed her thumb at a taller brunette who stood a few paces back. “I like how you stood up to Fontaine’s men, we wanted to offer you a position with our resistance movement.”
“What exactly is it you are resisting?” Mike asked. “I mean, you’re on a prison station.” The redhead flushed, and he saw her friend cover a smile.
“Just because we are here doesn’t mean we can’t do any good. I plan to seize the station, hold the Chxor Warden hostage until they send a ship to let us escape.” Mandy scowled at them when no one seemed impressed. “What, you don’t like that idea?”
“Uh… I could be wrong, but I’ve heard the Chxor don’t really value their people like we do…” Pixel said. “It seems to me that getting someplace other than an unarmed and immobile station would have a better chance of not-dying.”
“Right, because you’ve fought the Chxor for two decades,” Mandy snapped.
“We could just ask Run,” Pixel said. He pointed at the little Chxor.
“This plan is suboptimal,” Run said helpfully. “The System Commander would order the destruction of the station. I do not like this plan.” He cocked his head and peered at Mandy. “It appears that you have an infection of some kind. You have severe swelling in the chest. I should look at that-”
Mandy took a step back, “You’ve got a damned Chxor with you? Don’t you know what that alien scum has done? How can you tolerate one of them in the same room as you…”
“He’s useful,” Mike said. “Which you don’t seem to be right now. Look, you want off this station, then shut up and be helpful, instead of antagonizing the only people besides Fontaine with a plan, okay?”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. Mike suppressed a giggle at that. He hated idealists, they always either rode their theories down in flames or got beat up on until they turned sour and bitter. Either way, their high minded arrogance offended him.
“Look, we got off to a bad start, there,” Miranda said and Mike saw her put a restraining hand on her companion. “How about we start
over. You seem decent enough, maybe we can work together.”
“If you hate the Chxor, I’ll work with you,” Rastar said.
“What resources do you have?” Mike asked. “Fontaine has weapons, and men to use them. What does your… organization bring to the table?” He hated to use that word, as he suspected the pair of them did not know even the basics of how to organize a tea party much less a resistance. Mike did, but he had no desire to help Barbie Resistance Fighter set up shop.
“Uh…” Mandy said. “We know people, here on the station. And we help people.” She frowned. “There are some who will come when we tell them, but we’re a free spirited bunch.”
“Well tell them to get their free spirit asses ready,” Mike said. “When it happens, it will happen quickly, just like this brawl did. We’ll have to race Fontaine’s men for the shuttle. If you get there late, we can’t wait for you, understood?”
Mandy frowned and clearly the idea that someone might be left behind bothered her sensibilities. Miranda, on the other hand, gave him a calm nod. “We’ll make sure we keep up.”
“Good,” Mike said. “Now who else on this station doesn’t like Fontaine and would be up for escape?”
Simon spoke up, “There’s a handful of Nova Roma marines I think, the survivors from their embassy. They’re a protection detail for their ambassador, who’s a clueless bitch, but they seem decent enough. There’s also a Saragossan, Michael or something like that. Maybe a couple others.”
Mike nodded, “Alright, go talk with them, tell them what’s going on. Try to get them ready to move at a moment’s notice.” He glanced at the food dispensers. “I suppose we should eat while we can. I’m not sure how much time we’ll have in the next few hours.”
He went to the nearest machine, and typed in his prisoner code, then held his hand against the scanner for the biometrics check. A moment later, the machine instructed him to place a bowl in the dispenser. Ariadne passed him a bowl and a moment later he had himself a bowl of cold grain mush.
