by Martin Perry
A sharp, potent scream was heard a single floor above, breaking through the noise. It was loud and shrill enough to cut through the rest of the rabble. Champion darted his eyes upwards, and along with the rest of his marching line drew to a halt. Blows were exchanged, and through the grated floor the unfolding violence was visible. Men on either side of the immediate battle dived to the left and right, trying to avoid being caught up in the trouble and the punishment that would follow. The man causing the problems, a large korakian who was swinging his fists wildly, became unshackled from the floor, releasing those attached to him to flee obediently back into their cells.
Guards surrounded him now, and were prodding their batons forward. This only served to enrage the man turned beast who stood in the middle of their circle. The korakian continued to swing his fists, and his feet, before realising the futility of random attack. With his eyes still firmly focused on the battle above, Champion watched as the man spread his feet, ducked his head and charged forward at his captors.
The response was swift, one half of the guard flank moving in to ram the man from his right side. They connected with undeniable force, batons sparking against his skin, helmets crashing into his bones. They drove him toward the edge of the grate, before more guards gave the final shove. Thrashing and screaming, the man was lifted over the railing and dropped over the side. Champion heard the sickening crunch as the korakian hit the curved base of the block another thirty or so feet below his own position. A couple of whimpers were heard before the man let out his final breaths. At no point did a fellow prisoner tried to stop this man’s murder. The thought sickened Champion.
“Another one down,” whispered Ceej from behind him.
“This should not be allowed. Capital punishment here should be agreed before a prison committee and a fair jury,” Champion replied, keeping his voice muffled.
“Fair? Hah. Have you seen anything here that even resembled fair?” Ceej asked.
“It doesn’t matter. This facility is operating outside the law when it is supposed to be enforcing it. It can not be allowed to continue. Whatever these men did, whatever karma I have earned that has landed me here, we do not deserve this treatment.”
“Quiet in line!” shouted over one of the guards, sparking his baton in the air. Champion and Ceej conceded silence.
They were led through a barely lit tunnel, into the complex of the prison block. Strip lighting ran along the roof, some of it loose and sizzling as it hung in the air. The walls bore the evidence of the riot and other violence. Chunks of their hard surface had been chipped away by improvised weapons. Smears of blood were rotting on the surface, clumps of hair mixed in; some of it new, some of it old.
Champion expected that much of this would only ever be cleaned if the Soha Aldri was inspected. That was unlikely to occur though. Its location was part of the problem; officials would be far more likely to investigate a facility that wasn’t quite so far off the beaten track. Its record too amplified the issue. As far as the paperwork was concerned, the Soha Aldri was one of the most peaceful prison satellites in known space. Through dishonesty the twisted operators of this vessel had created a haven for themselves. One filled to the brim with ready victims.
They were led into an apparently empty hall, although Champion and every other man present knew better. The guards left, doors clanging shut behind them. Shackles began to unclip themselves from the feet of the prisoners, and yet nobody moved to exercise or cause trouble. At the front of this grey room, a glass partition separated them all from a large screen. Within moments of them being locked inside the screen flickered into life.
Images of green fields and beautiful women began to scan by, alternating in rapid sequence from one heavenly scene to another. The men were allowed to stand and watch them for a moment, just long enough for a slight grin to form on their faces. This was surprising to Champion who, unmoved by the naked females gyrating on screen, found it odd that men so aware of the suffering they were about to endure, would smile at such simple distraction.
Smile they did, until the roof of the room moved backwards and large robotic arms descended from the ceiling. They came down quietly, not startling the wide-eyed prisoners below, and then grabbed them with sharp snaps of their metal claws. The instant jolt of pain, many of the arms breaking the skin of the prisoners while clamping down around them, broke away the thoughts of idyllic country scenes and willing sexual partners. Once grabbed, Champion included, they were thrust in front of the screen to ogle at the pictures even closer.
It did not work, and to a man the screaming and wailing began. Further robotic arms, with further implements of punishment and inspection, came down from the sky. They entered orifices, they scanned eyes and brains. Champion felt the mental probe enter through his ear canal, and then the sensation of it flickering him through the emotional spectrum. In the space of seconds he felt elation, sadness, absolute depression, absolute joy and then the crushing weight of the death of a loved one. Each passing feeling was real, as far as Champion’s mind was concerned, and to convince himself otherwise was impossible. All around, prisoners convulsed and shook.
The probing emotional punishment lasted less than a minute, but within that time the weaker men had already passed out. They hung limply from the apparatus, with bubbles of drool leaking from their mouths. Champion, beginning to recover his senses in the most basic manner, looked around and tried to spot those which had failed processing. Despite his resolution against this place, he could not help but pray that he would not be one of them – whatever other punishment might await.
A prisoner was dropped by the equipment, and crumbled alone onto the ground below. He did not move. Instead, he bundled himself into a ball on the floor and started to mumble pleas of forgiveness. He had done nothing wrong, not here at least, but the machines had decided that he was a risk to the rest of the population. His reactions to the tests undertaken by the apparatus dictated this, and no quarrel was taken with the decisions of the machines. This man would be led away, whether he wept or not. Sure enough, guards entered, and he was hauled off by his feet. Champion did not expect to ever see this man again.
Panic swept through his body, one of the guards turning to face him. He walked towards Champion, and the strong ex-military man felt his knees shake. The pressure of the processing, followed by the threat of the guard in front of him, was almost more than he could bear.
“This is the one,” the guard said into his audio channel. “Sending him up now.”
Champion braced himself for impact, expecting to be dropped to the ground. Instead, the arms began to move, dragging him along with them. There was a sense of relief when he left the room, passing out of the doors, but being still in the grip of the apparatus meant this sensation was slight. He was being pulled through the Soha Aldri unsupervised, save for the machine whose grip he remained tightly held within.
The passing walls began to change colour. Black, blood-stained prison oppression gave way to whitewashed tunnels populated by the guards who were authorised to use them. Men stood in rows along the corridor, watching him closely as he passed before moving off back to whatever punitive task they were assigned to. Champion tried to follow the signs scattered around, but they flashed by too quickly. In front, what looked like an elevator shaft opened, but it was empty, lacking a capsule inside. Instead, the black hole promised a fast fall to a quick end.
Champion struggled against his shackles, trying to break free before the apparatus could move him to the waiting dead end. Two guards stood either side of the entryway. One turned to the other as he caught sight of Champion’s pointless attempt at escape. He smirked, and the starts of giggling laughter were just audible over the clanging metal as Champion thrashed from side to side.
On the precipice of the drop, still held by the robotic arms from above, Champion let a prayer escape his lips. He was thrown free, and hurtled through the air. His arms spun, trying to catch something that might stop the fall.
/> His agitated search was in vain, and he felt the ground open up beneath him, ready to swallow his life. Champion stopped moving, and prepared to accept his fate.
Yet it did not come. A platform rose quickly up through the shaft from a hidden location. It slammed into Champion, who had not yet built up enough speed to suffer severe injury from the collision. He lay out on it, whimpering and groaning, as it sped up through the shaft. Champion bumped up as the platform reached an apex, before continuing to slide along horizontally.
At the end of this winding route, Champion exited the dark, cold passage and entered into a golden, well lit room. It opened out above him in a dizzying curve. Grand golden arches were only the start of the opulence that now encircled a bruised and battered prisoner. Champion turned himself over onto his back, and looked up upon dangling crystals, all pure white. They caught the light of the room, and reflected back on silver stripes between the arches on the roof. Rows of mahogany bookshelves lined the walls around him. The exit of the passage, now clarified as an elevator shaft, closed, and he was left in the echoing silence of the room.
It was some time before he heard the clip-clop of heeled shoes approaching. Trying to steady himself on a raised arm, Champion attempted to stand himself up. The best he could manage was to turn to face the approaching woman.
“You should consider yourself quite fortunate,” she said, with her feet mere inches from his face. “I have never allowed a prisoner within my inner sanctum. Not this one, or any of the others spread across known space. It seems surprising doesn’t it, that in the years of my operating these prison satellites, I have never had a single inmate who warranted my personal attention.”
She moved away from him now, and towards a large desk piled high with panels, paper, and old books. With a sigh, she rested herself on the edge of it, relaxed. In the corner of the room Champion could see a sim platform, the most modern piece of equipment in a room that was otherwise traditional and dated. There she was again, the masked woman.
With returning strength, Champion stood and walked in her direction. It was a stumble, his weight threatening to fall forward.
“I hear you’ve not been co-operating with the questioning,” she said, lazily floating syllables into the air as if the context of her statement warranted no more attention than the disappearance of a sock or the loss of a tooth. Champion disagreed. His ongoing torture was not a matter than he took lightly.
“You have made a grave mistake in showing yourself as complicit in the atrocities happening aboard this ship,” he said through the blood pooling in his mouth. “I will not rest until League Detention is disassembled and its corpse stripped and sold on the free market.”
“Oh, really? How will you implicate me?” she replied nonchalantly.
“I know who you are.”
“And who is that?” she questioned further.
“You are Cherie Darvian, the person responsible for all of this. The owner of the League Detention Corporation.”
She unclipped the strapping that held her mask to her face. With it on, Champion could only see her eyes. From here, he could see the flowers engraved into the silver. She placed it down on the floor.
“No,” she replied, quickly moving her face right up to his. Grit filled her voice. “I am The Constant Admonition.”
Chapter Five
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Kerra and Maur were lying together on his bed, the cabin door locked and the world shut out. Neither was in any state of undress, but Maur's arm around Kerra's shoulder was enough intimacy for her to begin to work through the stresses polluting her mind. She held him tightly in return, a single arm thrown around his waist. They had taken to doing this a lot recently. She was still being distant however, and they had not been truly intimate since the Plasterio incident.
At times, when they were together in the dining room or on the command deck with others, it felt as though they could not demonstrate their affection for one and other. A professional veneer covered both of them whenever they were working, and it was difficult to feel as though work ever stopped when living on the Jump Cannon. When they locked themselves away it was tough not to talk about the events on the ship. It meant they argued more often than either of them wanted.
“Are you sure you're OK?” Kerra asked, turning her head up from Maur's chest to look at him. Her hair was blue, it had been for a couple of weeks.
“Why do you ask?” Maur replied, having to squeeze his chin down to see her.
“Why do you think?”
“Ugh, I thought we were past that. 14 spoke to Plasterio, we got paid. I hear they were happy to take the insurance money. They can build an entirely new factory,” said Maur.
“They weren't happy, no company is ever going to be happy if their employees die. At least they shouldn't be.”
“No, of course not. I regret that happened. It wasn't my fault though, the mission just went wrong. I didn't try to kill anybody,” Maur replied.
“I didn't say you did, but that wasn't a decision you would have made yourself. The Legacy made a choice for you, and just like in every mission where you've let it dictate your path, something went wrong.”
“That's not true. Without the Legacy we would have never caught The Gentle Reminder, and it was you that killed her.”
“I'd do it again. She hunted us across known space, threatened your mom, and tried to destroy the Jump Cannon. I'm proud to be the one that killed her,” Kerra replied.
“You should never be proud of killing somebody,” Maur mumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Look, I just need you to start being careful, and to start really thinking about whether or not the Legacy's suggestions are the ones you should be listening to. The Gentle Reminder was terrified of it, she ran away as soon as you had it. Doesn't that tell you something? Doesn't that suggest that maybe it has the capacity for pretty terrible things?” Kerra said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She wasn't chastising Maur, just trying to make him see sense as she saw it.
“Of course it is, but I'm not.”
“Maybe that doesn’t matter to the Legacy,” Kerra replied quickly. “I've held plenty of powerful weapons, and I've seen soldiers use them. I've used them. Just because they are strong, that doesn't mean that you should just trust them to fight your battle for you. If you had a pulse launcher, would you use it to take down a man at short range?”
“No.”
“The same thing applies to the Legacy. It is powerful, it might be the most powerful weapon anybody has ever held. That doesn't mean you should use it all the time, only when you need to.”
“Right.”
“Anyway, I've been doing some digging about the Legacy. What digging there is to do anyway,” she continued.
Maur was slightly surprised, and paused a moment to look at her and judge the sincerity of what she was saying. He had assumed that the Legacy was such an ancient artefact that investigating it would only lead to dead ends. Kerra, evidently less assumptive, seemed to suggest that she knew more about the weapon he now held.
“And?” Maur asked.
“And there's somebody I want to talk to. He lives in the Albion Republic. He's a professor, somebody who specialises in ancient weapons. He wrote a thesis that I think is about the Legacy.”
“Right,” Maur said, sounding sceptical.
“Don't say 'right' like that!”
“Like what?”
“Whatever, we're going to go see him. We just need to get some work in the AR,” Kerra replied, ending the conversation. They returned to silence, and Maur conceded the discussion before it turned to an argument.
While Kerra and Maur lay together, Yazram, Charles, Thom and Elrik were already knee deep in an operation on the hunt for information about the Legacy. Unbeknownst to Maur, a pact had been made among the assault staff of the Jump Can
non. Missions were being undertaken to secure information for the very professor that Kerra had just introduced to him.
Dr. Ben Vith was present in the audio channels of the four men as they crouched outside the Emperor’s Archive. The building loomed in front of them; a single tall spire in the middle of a flat field that ran all the way to the horizon. Jutting spikes ran in concentric circles from its bottom to its top. They had been added to the structure several years after its initial construction. Designed exactly for the purpose of keeping out the long list of thieves and opportunists that attempted to loot the structure, they were not the greatest issue facing the crew that lay in their shadow.
“The guards aren't changing?” Vith asked, with a tone of surprise and absent-minded humour. The potential for disaster did not seem to strike him as a matter for concern.
“No, not when you said they would,” Charles barked quietly, keeping his voice down but expressing his irritation still.
“Hmm, well that's certainly a turn-up for the books!”
Ben Vith had, in fact, assisted this group and other squads to procure information at his own behest on multiple occasions already. He had impressed Charles with accurate intelligence early on. Vith was no doubt well connected, or at least had established data connections which benefited him well, but this oversight was something that might cost them dearly.
“We're going to move to the right entrance, the rear is well covered,” Charles said, waving his hands at the crew near him.
“Oh,” Vith said with a bump of surprise in his voice, “OK. Well, best of luck.”
Vith was, as Kerra had only just told Maur, a professor from the Albion Republic. He was well-funded, and his tenure at New Future University guaranteed that he remained this way. However, he was not a soldier, being a slight and mousey young man. It came as both a shock and a welcome gift when Annie's crew had offered themselves at his disposal, in return for participation in his ongoing study of the weapon they called the Legacy.
