But now they were here, and what he saw made him laugh.
“Only four?” he said to the guard, who was in the process of going back and reviewing the feed of all the cameras that showed their approach prior to the alarm.
“Yes, sir. It looks that way.”
Le Savage shook his head as he chuckled. “I guess she didn’t have many friends.”
“I guess not, sir.”
He looked over at the guard sitting in the chair next to him. The guard had no way of knowing which inmate he had been referring to and yet had agreed. An urge came over Le Savage to strike the man across the side of his helmet. Either knock the helmet off completely, forcing the guard to walk across the room and pick it up, or else knock the guard out cold. There weren’t many things he despised more than men who agreed with him just because he was their superior. He understood it was supposed to be a sign of respect, but he would rather the guard remain silent to demonstrate he understood that Le Savage didn’t want or need his men to agree with him.
Rather than striking the guard, however, he turned to the man and said, “Take a squad of troops. Find their ship and arrest anyone still on board.”
The guard’s boots clicked together when he stood at attention. “Yes, sir,” he said, then turned and left the room.
This was exactly why Le Savage monitored what unfolded in his prison at all times. He was already looking forward to giving Mowbray the good news. Vere’s rescue party had finally arrived and not only would they fail, they would soon be prisoners themselves, being whipped alongside the prisoner they had failed to rescue.
9
Morgan and Traskk ran down the tunnel until a steel door blocked their way. Morgan pressed a dimly lit button beside it, and the door slid open. From inside, bright light flooded their eyes. Even though alarms were wailing, both of them were forced to pause there so they could shield their eyes until they adjusted.
“What are you doing?” Baldwin asked, coming up behind them. “Do you have her already?”
Morgan turned and looked back at him in amazement. Her mouth hung open and the corners of her eyes wrinkled in irritated disbelief. She almost turned to Traskk to say, “Is he serious? Does he really think it will be that easy?” but a laser blast struck the stone next to her face, spraying her cheek with dust. Another hit the ground just to the side of her boot.
Looking nearly straight up at a portion of the prison wall that bent into a slight curve, she saw Vonnegan troops in armor standing hundreds of yards above her, sniper blasters pointed in her direction. Just as she had thought, only a few of the guards on the ground level had blasters. Most had vibro whips. If all of them had blasters, at least one of the members in her group would likely have been hit already, if not killed. However, the guards on the ground were within range. One look up was all it took for Morgan to realize they could never hit the guards firing down on them from above. Thirty stories above the lava seas, the guards were in no danger. The entire time they spent trying to rescue Vere, Morgan and the others would be easy targets for guards who could take all the time they wanted to get a clear shot.
Next to her, Traskk’s mouth was slightly open, saliva dripping from his upper fangs. Behind her, Pistol was waiting to be told what to do. And Baldwin, poor Baldwin, was rapidly coming to the understanding that they not only didn’t have Vere yet, they might have undertaken a mission that was beyond their capabilities.
Not only were they easy targets for the snipers, they had to avoid the vibro whips. That didn’t even factor in Balor, who was on the far side of the prison ground. The one-eyed monster saw streaks of light shooting down from the tops of the wall toward the open door where Morgan and Traskk stood, and began lumbering toward them.
Another blaster shot hit the stone beside Morgan’s boot. The next singed her big toe.
The safest place for them was in the tunnel. Not for long, however. It would only take a few moments for the Vonnegan security forces to converge on them from all directions. When that happened, they would be trapped.
After taking one last look at Traskk, Morgan said, “It’s now or never,” then withdrew her Meursault blade and raced out into the prison grounds.
A trail of mist, the color of the red lava, trailed behind her as she sprinted toward the nearest guard.
Traskk was right behind her. As he ran, he withdrew a pair of ion axes from under his robes. With a click of the switch at the base of either handle, both weapons went from looking like ordinary metal weapons to having blades that glowed with faint blue energy.
At the tunnel’s opening, Baldwin looked at Pistol to make sure this really was their current reality.
“How do I get into these situations?” he asked, shaking his head. When the android began to provide the same answer he had offered on the way into the prison, Baldwin held up a hand and added, “There had to be a better way to do this.”
Pistol nodded in agreement. Without any emotion in his voice, he said, “I do question the logic of their reasoning sometimes.”
But before Baldwin could take solace in having someone agree with him, Pistol was also running out into the open air of the prison grounds. Instead of revealing a weapon or pair of weapons like Morgan and Traskk, Pistol’s hands began to glow as he made his way across the rocky yard.
Baldwin groaned. His legs shook. Sweat poured down his temples. Then a blaster shot flew past his ear so closely that he could hear his hair sizzling. He leaned back against the stone wall, out of sight from the marksmen high above him. Only when a second laser blast sailed past his face while he was still hidden did he realize how stupid he was—the laser had zipped past his shoulder and continued out into the field rather than hitting the stone by his feet. Cringing, he turned around and saw a group of Vonnegan guards, each one in full armor, at the far end of the tunnel. Without another thought, he too raced out into the prison grounds, trying to find one of his friends so they could protect him.
What he saw in every part of the prison yard was sheer chaos. Blaster fire rained down from high above the prison wall. Morgan was running around in the open, slashing down guards with her sword. Traskk alternated between slamming his tail against guards, which sent them flying through the air, and taking swings with his pair of ion axes. Electrified whips slashed the air as guards tried to keep themselves safe from the raiders and also from any inmates who saw a chance to pay back their torturers. Some of the inmates, their sanity long gone, hollered and cheered rather than actually take part in the uprising. Others picked up rocks or used the tools they had been given for manual labor and began tracking down the nearest person wearing a Vonnegan uniform.
Facing a guard who had a vibro whip in one hand, Traskk let out a roar of such rage and anger that instead of lashing out with his weapon the guard put his palms out to calm the Basilisk. But after getting his first opportunity to inflict pain on Vonnegan forces since having his limbs chopped off, Traskk would let nothing stop him from having his revenge. He leapt forward, cut the vibro whip in half with the blade of a glowing axe, then engulfed the screaming guard with his large claws and fangs.
Morgan’s blade, invisible to Baldwin, cut through a guard’s armor and left him on the ground in two evenly sized pieces. An inmate, senseless after a month of living at the Cauldrons, tried to tackle Morgan. She moved to the side and rammed the grip of her sword into the prisoner’s temple, leaving him motionless on the ground.
Although Pistol moved slowly through the fighting, his eyes were darting in every direction, calculating possible threats, risks, and tactics. The android’s system processed thousands of possible moves each second as bodies flew all around him. When one of the guards saw Baldwin huddled behind a rock, he wound back and sent his vibro whip darting through the air. Pistol’s hand came up so fast that Baldwin barely saw the movement. After blinking, the physician realized that Pistol held the guard’s vibro whip in one of his glowing hands. The guard yanked his arm back to free the whip, but Pistol shook his head, then yan
ked his own arm backward, pulling the guard toward him. In one motion, he reached down, took hold of the guard, and with both glowing hands, threw him a dozen feet through the air. The guard collided with another Vonnegan security trooper and both of them fell backward into the lava.
The entire time, blaster fire continued falling down from the top of the wall.
Without a better plan, Baldwin ran toward a guard who was already unconscious on the ground and grabbed his vibro whip. At least that way, he would have a way of protecting himself. But as soon as it was in his hand, more blaster shots began hitting the dirt all around his feet and he dropped the weapon.
“I don’t know how to use one of these anyway,” he muttered, then scanned the field for Morgan and ran toward her.
A tremor thundered through the prison grounds like an earthquake. Almost everyone—security forces, prisoners, Morgan and Trask—paused for a split second to see what had happened.
A second tremor shook the ground.
“If this is some kind of security measure we don’t know about,” Morgan called to Traskk, “the entire prison ground might come apart under our feet and send us into the lava.”
Traskk looked at the nearby molten sea and roared.
Another tremor shook the ground.
Looking down, Morgan realized there were no cracks in the ground, no places were the rock was coming apart at the seams.
A booming roar sounded, louder and deeper than any noise Traskk had ever made. Morgan knew then what was happening. The monster of the Cauldrons was extremely unhappy.
Balor had been disturbed by all of the fighting and blaster fire. In response, he was slamming his two mighty fists against the ground. When that only momentarily paused the chaos, the monster quickened his pace toward the same tunnel entrance that Morgan and the others had arrived from. The monster hadn’t moved with great urgency until he had gotten shot by one of the guards atop the wall. Now, his feet stomped the ground, causing tremors each time he took a step. His fists slammed the rock surface, making the entire prison ground rattle. He reached out, snatched up a prisoner in one fist, roared, then threw him thirty yards out into the lava. Next, he snatched up a guard and did the same with him.
After Balor came upon another prisoner, the little feathery alien put his hands up and begged to be left alone. The monster didn’t reach out and grab him. He did look at the prisoner, though.
The inmates feathers began to fall from his body. He tried to yell, but instead he could only cough and gag. His cheeks began to sink into his skull. His mostly bare skin, pale and cream colored after losing his feathers, began to turn gray. In a matter of seconds, all of the liquid in the prisoner’s body had evaporated. The giant used the outside of his foot to kick the dead body away before moving further across the prison grounds. The guards, inmates, and Morgan and Traskk stopped fighting each other and ran to get away from the giant as it smashed everything in its sight.
Baldwin saw Morgan in the far corner of the prison yard, a collection of boulders in front of her to offer protection.
“What are we going to do?” he asked after running up beside her.
She looked at him as if she were surprised he was still alive, annoyed at what she considered a stupid question.
“Find Vere,” she said.
Without waiting for another question, she jumped out from behind the rocks, cut a vibro whip in half, then began chasing the guard who had been holding it.
Under the giant’s gaze, another prisoner became a shriveled up sack of skin and bones.
Traskk slammed his tail against a patch of ground directly next to a puddle of lava. The force brought a splash of molten liquid up to the helmet of the guard standing nearest to the reptile. The guard, his helmet melting as he still wore it, ran in circles without doing anything intelligible. A moment later, Balor grabbed the screaming guard off the ground, took a long look at him, and the guard was dead even before his body was tossed into the lava seas.
Looking all around him, Baldwin only saw laser blasts and death and glowing blades. A blaster shot zipped past him, hitting a rock and sending dust across the side of his face. Then he saw her. Vere.
She was in the very middle of the prison grounds, where the most intense fighting was going on between the guards and prisoners. His mouth fell open. He stared, dumbstruck and uncomprehending at what he was seeing. In the midst of all the fighting, as her friends were trying to rescue her, Vere was still pushing the thick wooden beam in agonizingly slow circles.
Balor Roaming the Prison Grounds, by Chris Dietzel – mixed media
10
Vere planted her back foot, braced her chest against the wood beam, then pushed with every part of her body. The Circle of Sorrow moved another few inches.
With her hips and feet switched, she planted her other foot into the ground, took a deep breath, then repeated the action. The heavy wood beam groaned as it moved a little further in its unending count of revolutions.
Behind her, there was yelling and screaming. But there had been yelling and screaming each and every day she had been at the prison. Guards threatened inmates, telling them to work harder unless they wanted to feel the electric whip lash at them. Inmates begged for a pause from the grueling work and cried out for a reprieve from the agony the guards inflicted upon them. Incessant noises of suffering and fighting were nothing unusual.
With her back foot planted firmly against the ground, her hips down to generate the force, she drove her hands and arms into the wood beam. It moved another bit further along in its circle.
Yes, there was death and violence all around her. But death and violence had been a part of her time at the Cauldrons from the very first day she had been there. A guard could waste his breath yelling at an inmate to work harder. More often than not, he simply reeled back, without any warning at all, and brought the vibro whip crashing across the prisoner’s flesh.
Digging her back foot into the ground, she pushed the beam again.
Behind her, someone yelled, “Vere, we have to get out of here,” but she didn’t hear it.
She had learned very early on that if she just kept pushing the Circle of Sorrow, the guards wouldn’t whip her. They still harassed her, still yelled taunts at her, kicked dirt on her. They didn’t whip her, however, if the wheel kept moving.
“Vere, what are you doing?” the voice yelled again. “We have to go. Now!”
Rather than turn to see who had been talking to her, Vere pushed once more with all of her might. The wood beam moved further along its course.
Early on during her time at the Cauldrons, one of the guards would yell that a security door had accidently been left open, or that her friends had arrived and were trying to free her. If she did anything other than continue to push the wheel, she was whipped. Even if all she did was look up to see which guard had spoken to her, a vibro whip lashed her back. Other times, the guards told another prisoner to walk by Vere and whisper that an escape was being planned. All she had to do was stop pushing the Circle of Sorrow and run toward one of the exits and she would be saved. If she paused from pushing the wheel to consider what she had been told, the guards whipped her.
With a heave and grunt, she pushed the log forward again.
She had never been whipped by one of the ancient leather whips so she had no way of comparing what that punishment felt like compared to a vibro whip. She had heard, though, from prisoners who had received both types of beatings, that the pain and damage caused by a vibro whip couldn’t be matched by any other type of weapon.
Her body was a testament to that. Each place the vibro whips had lashed at her shoulders and back had been ripped open when the whip crashed against it, then bubbled for a few seconds as pain racked her bones and muscles. Then the skin healed as blistered and scarred tissue.
It was already a nearly impossible task to keep the Circle of Sorrow moving. She had to use all of her strength, hour after hour, to keep the heavy cylinder revolving. After being whipped, th
e task became a cruel joke. Each time she pushed forward, the wounds would split open and all of the infected blisters and lesions would begin dripping blood and pus down her back. If she were dumb enough to ask for a doctor, the guards would either immediately whip her again, or else they would laugh first, share the joke with the other guards, and then unleash the vibro whips again.
“Vere, we have to go,” a voice screamed at her. “Right now!”
Instead of turning to see who kept trying to get her in trouble, she dug her back foot into the ground, then pushed with all of the energy she had remaining in her body.
What the person who was yelling at her didn’t understand was that only Vere’s body was at the Cauldrons of Dagda. Her mind, under the guidance of Mortimous, was somewhere else completely. Somewhere far off, away from the screaming and fighting and suffering.
11
Quickly kept the Griffin Fire in a holding pattern over the spaceport. Without knowing how far Morgan and the others could make it into the prison before they triggered the first alarm, he was left to fly in slow circles around an open spot on the landing platform while mining ships continued to arrive and depart as they normally would.
At any other spaceport, someone from the dock control would have sent a communication telling him to either land or leave so the airspace was clear. But at Terror-Dhome, where not much traffic came or went, and where no one needed to be told to operate in accordance with all galactic regulations unless they wanted to go next door, into the Cauldrons, no pilot needed reminders of how to behave. He was actually surprised by how long it took for Morgan and the others to trigger the alarms and for the first batch of Vonnegan security forces to appear.
The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) Page 4
