STORM SLAVE: THE STORM PLANET SERIES: VOLUME THREE

by M. Garnet

  Carefully she reached out and twisted her finger until the seed let go and sailed away.

  “Go with the jungle angels’ blessings, little seed and grow.” Joo felt privileged, giving her own people’s prayer. So maybe there was strength to be gained from this storm planet.

  She looked at her other hand that still held the small communicator. With the power bombs hitting the water and mountains, general communication had been knocked out. But this power rich world had the ability to talk to each other through different manners, such as the small unit she now held.

  She was pretty sure if she used it, that the voice on the other end would only be the Commander. Was she willing to go there? She watched the storm run out of energy and a soft rain was all that was left. It was a reflection of her energy, most of it gone with only a soft core inside.

  She moved her back against the rock wall, pulling her knees up against her chest. Looking out at the soft drops hitting the ground, she tapped the communicator.

  The communicator triggered a buzz in the pocket of Baloko’s shirt. He was on the flat surface of the landing bay, instructing this special group that they were looking for a killer. He waved his second into position and moved away.

  He pulled out the small unit and spoke into it. “Joo, you aren’t in your apartment. Are you safe?”

  Joo sighed, knowing he heard every sound she made. “I submit.” These were the words she had expected to say to a special male on her jungle world. She felt the heat of her body as she said it to this strong male.

  She knew they both weren’t of this storm world, but it had drawn them together. It hadn’t destroyed them as it had the ships that slammed through the atmosphere. No, it had made them stronger. It had made them free in some ways and it had tied them willing slaves to this storm planet.

  “I submit to you, Commander Baloko Sachim.”

  Baloko felt his erection push against the tight pants of his uniform. Submit was a word that hit his gut like a hot brand. He had not doubted that the female knew one hundred percent what that word meant to him.

  He felt he had to do everything one did for a sub, starting by protecting her. “Joo, I accept your submission. At this point I can’t come and claim you. You must stay safe for me. Return to your apartment. I want you to eat, to take a long warm bath and then go to bed. Sleep without clothes, but keep one of your small knives with you. Call me if you have questions or an intrusion. Otherwise, practice the relaxations of your people before the hunts. Will you obey me?”

  Joo sighed as at last she was protected. “Yes, Commander.”

  Baloko took a second, but realized she was a warrior in her own right and needed information to protect herself.

  “My own, I need you to take care. There is a killer lose within our Royal Cave. I am sure, as large as this city is, that you aren’t in danger. We feel he is trying to reach someone important. But he has killed a female who just made the mistake of getting in his way. I will have one of my troopers meet you at your apartment door. You will wait while he clears the area, then when you are inside, lock up and call me to let me know you are safe. Can you follow my orders?”

  Even though he couldn’t see her, she bowed her head. “I obey.”

  He heard the anger in her voice, but was satisfied that she would do what he requested. He made arrangements for a trooper who was walking the upper floors to go to her apartment and help her.

  ****

  Since he had been forced to kill the female hunter it had been harder to move through the hallways. He had to go back and take a job within the service group, delivering items on a floating cart.

  He put a piece of a towel in one boot. This would give him a natural limp. The boot was a light color to match the pale yellow of the uniform, supplied to the workers in this division. He had worked in this area and held a position legitimately, so some nodded at him.

  Being in the Royal Cave had been nothing but sheer luck. Everything after that had been hard work on his part. His first efforts had been to keep his body hard and trained. This meant that he had to constantly needed to work out and exercise. He needed to practice all the deadly moves he had learned and seen until he could do them in the dark.

  He had no trouble keeping the anger within him as he thought of his brothers in his father’s luxurious military style home with so many servants. He thought of this as he acted out the role as a servant here in the cave full of the enemy.

  It took him a couple of full turn periods on this world, finding out the right job that would let him move around this mammoth inside city. His first inclination toward the military was quickly discarded.

  There was no freedom in the military. You trained in groups, slept and ate in restricted areas and your absence was noted immediately.

  Repair teams were good and had a lot of freedom. But they were limited to certain areas. There were repair teams for the ships that were kept on the main floor, an area larger than most landing areas on open worlds.

  There were also repair teams for the city itself, but they were monitored and assigned in groups of four or more to repair whatever went wrong in such a large city of fifty thousand beings within a mountain. This cave city was larger than the city he came from on his discarded planet.

  He was bringing parts to a repair group on the main floor when he took a break, to receive food from a server dressed in pale yellow pushing a floating dispenser cart.

  Looking up at the outer walkways outside some of the apartments, he saw the same yellow uniforms pushing carts. These individuals went everywhere and always by themselves.

  It took a strange sickness hitting a lot of the yellow workers to open up some slots for additional personnel. His patience was tried before he was able to change his ID with another that would allow him to higher hallways. These still weren’t the protected hallways that had the ones he needed to reach, but he was getting closer.

  Dressed in yellow he had a lot of what he needed. He could often disappear in order to investigate the different hallways of the city. He was able to have small closets all over the lower city where he slowly collected tools, black clothes and even small mirrors.

  When the war initiated, it was a great break for him. There was less control over everyone, as the mountain shook and inner damage broke away from the walls and ceiling.

  Power came and went, but since Threads were available, there was restoration of power even though it was controlled. It would be destroyed or knocked out in sections. Then power would be back on, not as clean and not with everything working, but the Threads always brought power.

  He smiled as he thought how angry the attackers must be, as they saw the power reinstated on this wet, windy planet. For him, it was exactly what he needed, to have to wrestle the floating carts up a set of stairs instead of being able to use the lifts.

  With the war, he was feeling pressure to carry out his goal. He had to kill one of the top four who now ran this world when the Twinned Dissnue deserted them. The war also gave him more freedom in the city, as there was an amount of chaos that let beings move around more than they had due to the damage, power shifts and troop movement.

  He had to kill the female and it was almost a mistake. He had no regret about the killing it was just a thing to be done, as she had discovered him spying on the Heir and the Commander. The deed was no more than swatting a bug climbing on his arm.

  But he hated her for bringing attention to him. For so long his hate and his anger had allowed him to do whatever it took to remain unnoticed. He washed dirty items, carried loads with odors that caused his fellow workers to lose their meals.

  He moved heavy loads, knowing this built muscles on his thin body. He followed and cleaned disposal units, knowing the smell would lead him to rooms.

  There was a call for a delivery of food and bedding to one of the top floors. The prep room was full of groans, at the thought of wrestling a cart to the top of the city without the lifts working.

  A female who had wor
ked her way over to almost lean against him, was surprised when he volunteered to take the cart.

  “Need some help? I am almost off my shift.” The female had been making moves on him every time they met in the prep room. He didn’t need this type of attention.

  He disliked sex. When the urge first hit him, he watched his brother and used his hand. His brothers were as cruel with sex, as they had been with him, when dear old dad wasn’t around. Sex was a weakness that sapped a male.

  “Later.” He promised the female, knowing it was a promise he wasn’t going to keep. It didn’t take long to get the cart and move out with others. It did take a long time to get the cart up the stairs.

  Twice he found a dark place to dump some of the items. He needed to keep some food and bedding in order to have reasons for being in the upper area. He hoped by getting the load lighter he wouldn’t be tired.

  He had a long slender wire, filed down to make a strange knife. It wasn’t meant to slice yet it would pierce anything, including the protective uniforms the Royal Guards wore. He felt that in some case it might kill and not leave enough of a mark that it would confuse those who examined the dead body. Still he preferred to take the life with just his bare hands.

  In the slave training pools, he had taken too many and was chained in solitary until his rescued by the males from the storm planet. Here he had to curb that impulse, looking for points where accidents happened, where bodies would not be found.

  Now he had a chance to use his hands or his long nail weapon, as he pushed the cart upward.

  Chapter Twelve

  Getting involved in the war….

  A trooper was going through her apartment. Joo hated every step of time that she had to wait back down in the tunnel. She hated to have her apartment violated by a male in uniform.

  She accepted that the Commander was protecting her. It was his duty when she had submitted to him. Still, she was trained as a warrior on her own world and it was difficult to sit aside and let the trooper check her rooms.

  She heard a worker struggling a cart up a stairway. She really didn’t want to meet anyone in this dark tunnel, so she stepped back and knelt down to fit into a small indention. She had no idea what the carving into the side of the rock was about, but it let her small body slide in to hide.

  She hadn’t hid here thinking to see anything of interest. She just was being Joo, wanting to be left alone. Her sharp ears, trained to identify noise from her early life, hadn’t changed on this world.

  Living for a short time on top, she had learned to give new names to the noises that penetrated over the sounds of rain and wind. Inside these tunnels, resonance screamed at her.

  The echo of not only the cart hitting the side of the opening at the end of the stairwell, but the boots on the steps, then the runner that covered the hallway. The worker had gotten the cart into the tunnel. She expected the worker to begin to go to each apartment to give out the food she could smell and items of toweling.

  She ignored the worker, waiting for the trooper to exit one of her big doors just behind her in the tunnel. She only had unlocked one of the double wooden doors, needing to feel the security of having that other door bolted shut all the time.

  She curled in her hole, hardly breathing, when she noticed something strange about the worker. The worker was throwing clean items off the cart and back down the stairs.

  Damn, she had seen some pretty lazy help, but this took the book. So shiftless that he wouldn’t even deliver a few clean items. Joo carefully leaned out to watch the worker go over to the first apartment door and try the handle.

  She was fascinated, as she watched the movement of this male when he left his cart and crossed to the door. He seemed to be limping yet he showed a strength that said he didn’t have an infirmity.

  He entered the apartment without anything from his cart, leaving the cart where it had first sat by the stairs. Joo moved out further, making sure she stayed in the black shadow at the side of the rock.

  It was none of her business, yet she couldn’t help but wonder what the worker was up to. Was he stealing items? She froze against the wall as the worker came back out with hardly a limp, taking the floating cart to begin to come in her direction.

  Next she was in for a real shock. The trooper came out of her apartment, speaking into a unit. With the appearance of the trooper, the worker with the cart immediately turned to go in the opposite direction.

  The worker’s limp was now pronounced and his shoulders were drooped, making him seem to be older and slow. Still it didn’t take him long to disappear down the long hallway.

  Joo stepped out into the hallway, letting the trooper see her.

  The trooper spoke into his unit, than to her. “Mistress, the rooms are clean. Please enter and lock up behind you. Food will be coming shortly. You can talk to Commander Sachim on your own unit.”

  The trooper stepped back and waited as she came forward and entered the open door. She closed it and waited until she heard his footsteps drift away. Joo knew he had to go the same way as the worker, as the trooper took the stairs down to report for his next orders.

  She stood there for moments, fighting with herself. It was within her nature to investigate a mystery. The non-injured limping yellow uniformed worker was a mystery. Not only that, to be safe she, had to know what was in this area. That worker had an evil feeling about him and how he was acting.

  Her Commander was too busy taking care of the Heir and mopping up the war. He would assume she was safe and she couldn’t think of any reason to tell him any different. She intended to stay safe, just take a little walk. After all, how much danger was there from a strange, yellow clothed worker?

  Joo took off her boots and kept on just her thin stockings. She checked to make sure she had a good knife tucked into the back belt of her pants. With her black hood up over her head, she slid out into the hallway and jogged quietly after the strange worker.

  When she heard two males talking, she slid into the dark shadows against the wall and moved forward slowly. In the distance she could see a civilian male talking to the yellow uniformed worker.

  She listened carefully. The worker seemed to be asking directions and the civilian was exasperated as he wanted towels and couldn’t understand why a cart worker would need directions.

  While observing this strange discourse, Joo saw the worker straighten up, looking in both directions of the tunnel. He was no longer a sore limping worker. He was taller, thin but stronger appearing.

  What happened next was so fast, she had to replay it in her mind to know exactly the sequence of the death of the civilian. In slow motion, as the civilian turned away, it looked like the worker had reached out to wrap an arm around him, to hug him tight. The worker’s other hand came around, taking hold on the civilian’s chin and pulled his head with a sharp twist all the way around, beyond the shoulder.

  Even this far down the tunnel, Joo heard the snaps of the neck bones. There was no cry or noise from the civilian. Even this far away, she smelled the bodily functions give away as the male died instantly.

  At this point Joo was frozen. She didn’t move a foot or take a deep breath, thankful that her mouth was open. She watched the killer scan the tunnel as he held the body. At last, he moved over to the trash disposal covered opening. It was a large square metal covered opening that was large enough that most items could be pushed into the metal door that swung inward. Anything that was pushed past the opening went down to the fires below. It did take a a double tap of a adult hand just above the swinging door to release the lock. This safety lock prevented youths from throwing something away that an adult might desire, like a crying baby brother.

  As a strong female, she accepted the fact that the killer had more strength than anyone his size, as he moved the limp body. Being a worker he had a pass bar to open the disposal door.

  Again he scrutinized in both directions, then holding the body between him and the wall, he unlocked the small square child-proof
door. It took such a short time to tilt the body and let it disappear with little noise.

  The disposal unit locked automatically, but she wondered what he was doing. He went back to the cart and pulled out towels and some type of hand held dispenser. He was now stooped over, cleaning the floor with liquid from the small container and his towels.

  With his back to her, she took a couple of slow steps backward, still against the rock wall. She realized he couldn’t get a smell of her as he cleaned up the rejection from the male he had killed.

  Joo didn’t have time to wonder why a killer was loose in the mountain city, she only needed to find the time to escape. Moving on the socks, she was able to slide along the wall until she felt she had reached the slow turn in the long hallway.

  At this point, she felt she could move out and jog. Each point of contact was still quiet, as she landed on the front of her foot with each step. Having learned how to hide herself in the jungle, she took air in through her mouth and out through her noise.

  Somewhere in her rush she heard the killer behind her. Now was not a time for quiet or subtlety, now was the time for speed. If she could get to her rooms, inside that one great door, she could throw the heavy lock.

  The killer was thinking the same thing about speed, as he made no attempt at stealth. Joo also knew he had made the decision that she was a civilian and vulnerable. She was praying that someone, anyone would show up in the tunnel to help her or delay the killer.

  One more curve in the hallway and then it was straight past two doors on the wrong side and into her apartment. She was already mapping out her moves, arm extended hand open to reach the handle. It would be a complete set of coordination, as she passed through the door, shoving it shut and pushing the large lock into place.

  He was too close. Maybe it would be better to just duck into the room and run to the washroom. There was a lock on that door also. Anything that would slow him down and let her pull out the unit to call the Commander. Where had the soldier gone that had searched her apartment?