Normally he would have lined up with Edwards and Harkov and shared a cell with them, that would have been easier, but because of Edwards’ injury and the fact that he had to rely on other prisoners to be his crutches, it was almost guaranteed he’d be the last to the cellblock and wind up on the far end. Nimoux couldn’t be in that cell tonight, not if he was going to escape. And so Nimoux fell into line with two total strangers.
He’d briefly considered hiding in the yard again and making his escape from there. That way he wouldn’t have to deal with the additional obstacle of the cellblock. But, as appealing as it was, he had to discard that idea practically as soon as he thought of it because the guards would be onto him too fast.
They entered the cell block and the guards began distributing the prisoners into the cells exactly as Nimoux had calculated. Once any particular cell had three inmates the door was slammed shut and locked, an official tally was adjusted, and the group proceeded forward. Eventually it was Nimoux’s turn and, like he’d hoped, he wound up in the very cell he’d planned.
The door closed shut. The guard turned and removed the key, announced the count as he did, another guard adjusted the tally accordingly, and the group of prisoners proceeded on. Leaving Nimoux alone with his two cellmates for the night.
This presented a difficult consideration. He knew he couldn’t invite his cellmates along for his escape, but he also worried they might notice his absence. Or worse, see him leaving and demand to go with him, threatening to alert a guard if he didn’t allow it.
Both of his cellmates were slim and tan, their malnourished, sun-kissed skin had the telltale signs of being prisoners on this planet for too long. Neither looked particularly violent, or strong. Though one seemed a lot more energetic than the other.
“Hero of the Empire,” the energetic one whispered, he had sandy colored hair. He shot Nimoux a sardonic smile. “So, are you going to save us?”
Nimoux didn’t answer. Instead he looked through the bars and watched as the other prisoners were filed away. Because the cell walls protruded several inches on either side of the barred door, it was almost impossible to see much on either side. A fact Nimoux counted on to execute his plan without any of the other prisoners noticing.
He knew it would be another twenty minutes at least before the rest of the prisoners were counted and secured so all he could do was wait. He casually stretched his arms, knowing that the first part of his escape depended entirely on strength and endurance.
“Hey, Hero, I’m talking to you,” said his sandy-haired cellmate. Obviously perturbed that Nimoux had ignored him. Nimoux knew it was best not to disturb his new roommates. Especially when he needed them to go to sleep as soon as possible.
I need to respond enough to placate him, thought Nimoux. But not enough to actually engage him. Ideally he’ll lose interest and go to bed.
“Hello,” said Nimoux quietly.
“Oh look he can talk,” the sandy-haired inmate grinned. He gave the other inmate, the one with brown hair, a funny look, as if they were old friends sharing a joke. But it was obvious the brown-haired inmate wanted nothing to do with him—he just shrugged and lay down on one of the cots, clearly exhausted. Fast on his way to sleep. Nimoux was grateful for that and hoped the sandy-haired inmate would take a hint and follow suit.
“So are you going to get us out of here?” asked the sandy-haired inmate.
“I wish I could,” said Nimoux.
The man looked at him with squinty eyes, as if examining him. Like he expected Nimoux to produce a solution from his rectum and vanish them all back to the safety of Capital World.
“I saw you on the news,” continued the sandy haired man.
Nimoux nodded.
“They said you freed all those slaves.”
The fruits of the Altair mission, which had effectively shut down the human slave trade, had become something of a public relations victory for Intel Wing. Even though the specific details were mostly classified, the general public had gotten the basic story—Intel Wing had freed thousands of slaves. They didn’t know that to achieve success Nimoux had been forced to murder three innocent people.
Never again.
“So does that mean you’re going to free us?” asked the sandy-haired man.
“I wish I could,” said Nimoux. Hoping the man would lose interest.
The sandy-haired man looked back at him sinisterly, disappointment shining in his crooked eyes. “When I get out of here. I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill them all.”
“I hear you,” said Nimoux, wanting only to placate the other inmate so he would shut up and go to sleep.
“I’m going to start with Jimmy Arnolds. I’m going to grab that fat head of his and squeeze his eyes out with my thumbs, all nice and slow. You know? And ask him if he likes it. Then I’ll push harder, and harder, squishing those eyes like grapes until that bloody gooey shit drips down the sides of his cold dead cheeks.” As the sandy-haired man spoke, his eyes seemed to drift off to some faraway place. “And then that fatass will be dead. And I’ll find his children and kill them too. Even if I have to go to all over the galaxy to do it!”
As Nimoux looked at him, listening to the man’s lust for violence, he realized this man didn’t actually strike him as the kind of person who would normally think such things, less yet say them. In fact, if Nimoux had to guess, the sandy-haired man had probably been some sort of a businessman in civil society before he’d been dragged here and replaced. This anger, this thirst to hurt someone, was probably the product of the treatment he’d received here.
They take people and lock them away and treat them like barbarians and animals, thought Nimoux. And over time they become barbarians and animals. Just like they’re treated.
After providing a few more choice details of the vengeance he would extract upon the specific guards and their families, the sandy-haired man fell silent and seemed not to take further notice of Nimoux. Several minutes passed and the guards finished securing the prisoners. The last of the cells slammed shut and the main lights dimmed.
Nimoux waited. Feeling his heart beat rapidly as he worked through the details of his plan for the umpteenth time. He went into a breathing exercise automatically and took a moment to meditate. Ever chasing his elusive center.
I have to focus. I have to be patient. I must be in control, he thought. In and out, nice and slow, he exhaled and inhaled deeply. Waiting. In and out.
The brown-haired inmate fell asleep first. His light snores were like music to Nimoux’s ears. Now all he had to do was wait for the sandy-haired man to do the same. Then he could make his move. And the sooner the better.
More time passed. Nimoux estimated that it had been almost thirty minutes. Making now the perfect time to slip away, but he couldn’t. Because the sandy-haired man remained awake. He was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, staring off at the darkness. Silent as the night.
Nimoux remained patient, still hopeful that the sandy-haired man would lie down and sleep. But his mind began to consider what his contingency options were.
I could use a sleeper hold and force him unconscious by blocking his carotid arteries. Then I could slip away, thought Nimoux. But that won’t help. He’ll remain unconscious for thirty seconds, at most a minute, then when he’s awake he’ll see that I’ve gone, remember that I choked him, and undoubtedly call for a guard. I can’t incapacitate him safely. Not unless I kill him…
As soon as he thought it, Nimoux dismissed the option, feeling disgusted that it’d even crossed his mind. I can’t kill him, he knew. This man, despite his clear need for therapy, was likely as innocent as everyone else here, in the sense that he hadn’t committed some kind of crime and was justifiably incarcerated for it, rather he’d made the mistake of occupying a position of influence in human society and some pervasively vile force had stolen him away and replaced him for its benefit. Just as they’d done to Harkov, and Edwards, and even Nimoux himself. The justification that the
ends justified the means was always tempting. Nimoux wanted to escape, had an urgent need to escape—he had to warn the Empire—and on balance the value of this man’s life seemed like nothing. A perfect stranger, and a deranged one at that, what would it matter if he was dead? But Nimoux refused to let himself think along those lines. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t, not again, he’d sworn as much over the graves of the three innocents he’d killed. And he wasn’t about to go back on his word. If he did, what would that make him? He shuddered at the thought.
So if I can’t kill him and he refuses to go to sleep then what? Nimoux wondered. I’ll have to take him with me, won’t I? realized Nimoux as he found himself unable to come up with another option. He supposed he could abandon his escape effort for the night and try again tomorrow night, but that didn’t feel like a good option to him. It felt like an unacceptable risk. Especially since there was no guarantee that he would find in a better position.
I’ll wait a little longer, Nimoux decided. Eventually he’ll go to sleep. He’ll have to. There was no guarantee, of course, but Nimoux judged it was still the likeliest outcome. In general, the prisoners weren’t given as much time to sleep as they needed, and they didn’t sleep particularly well in the cell block. The days weren’t very long but they were scorchingly hot and that had a way of making them all tired. It wouldn’t make sense for the sandy-haired man to stay awake all night for no compelling reason.
So Nimoux made a pretense of going to sleep himself. His instincts warned him not to turn his back to the sandy-haired man, and indeed if Nimoux had actually planned to get any sleep, he would have made certain to be the last to drift off. Hoping he slept very lightly. But since he was only pretending, he closed his eyes and kept his ears alert. Remaining awake and vigilant, despite appearances, and waited.
After twenty or so minutes, he stirred silently and got up. Taking care to move as soundlessly as possible. Both of the other inmates were asleep. That’s more like it, he thought. He waited for two minutes, carefully watching the sandy-haired man, wanting to make certain he was truly asleep, and then Nimoux crept to the cell door. It was time to find out if his idea worked. He held his breath and curled his hands around the bars.
Moment of truth.
With expert care, he gently pulled on the cell door. It slid. Success! The mud that he’d put inside the locking mechanism to block the pin—mortared into place with his own spit and sweat—worked. He felt a rush of excitement but remembered to keep calm and manage his breathing. His heart beat like a snare drum, thumping in his ears, but that couldn’t be helped.
He slid the door open just enough to slip out and not a millimeter more. The action made a slight scratching noise but it was barely audible, and no one seemed to notice. He gingerly closed the door behind him so it wouldn’t be noticed by a patrolling guard. Time to go.
He went prone immediately and crawled directly forward and under the railing, stopping once he got to the ledge. He didn’t want to be seen by any patrolling guards or his fellow prisoners. It would be almost a dead giveaway if he walked, or crept, to the stairs. That route would take him past other cells and someone would see him. This was the only alternative.
Keeping a firm grip on the ledge, he swung his legs out and lowered himself as much as he could until his whole body was dangling in the air. Suspended over the ground floor. He was tempted to drop from there but knew the distance from his feet to the ground was still about eight meters. Which was too much.
So he moved laterally along the edge, holding up his entire bodyweight as he went, placing hand over hand. The metal-grated flooring gave him excellent handgrips, allowing him to loop his fingers through the grating and not have to depend entirely on his topmost knuckles to sustain him, but the process was still arduous. And became increasingly difficult with every meter. At one point his arms and hands felt so tired he was sure he would lose his grip and plunge to the ground floor. But he didn’t. He remembered what was at stake, controlled his breathing rhythm, and forced himself to endure.
After what felt like an eternity, he’d gone the distance and found himself next to the stairwell. He swung his legs up over the railing, grateful for the core exercises he’d forced himself to do in the black cell, and got himself onto the stairs. As soon as he had sufficient footing, his arms went limp and he wanted nothing more than to rest but there was no time. He scrambled down the stairs as stealthily as he could. The instant he reached the ground floor he bolted for the exit. Quickly finding himself in the yard.
It was dark outside. A few of the portable structures had light pouring out their windows but most looked abandoned. He ran at a steady jog, wanting to be swift but not tire himself out, all the while grateful the sand cushioned his footfalls, allowing him to move silently.
None of the guards had been organized into a foot patrol for the yard. Leaving Nimoux alone, able to approach the Command Station with virtual impunity, so long as he moved warily and avoided the spotlights, infrared cameras, and windows.
When he reached the Command Station, he entered through one of the side entrances. One he suspected would neither alarmed nor actively watched. As the door slid open, he knew he was rolling the dice. But took some comfort in the knowledge that most of the remaining guards were in the barracks sleeping, not guarding the Command Station.
Luckily no one was there. Just a small security desk at the elbow of two main corridors, if they hadn’t stripped the prison staff so thoroughly there probably would have been someone here, he knew.
He sprinted down the hall and around a corner, ducking aside and hiding in doorways and behind desks whenever someone sounded near. He moved carefully, with the instincts of a trained special forces operative. And he thought back to his military service prior to joining Intel Wing.
Eventually he reached the guardroom. The pedestrian transmitter is in there, he thought. And there will be a guard in there too for sure. Perhaps more than one.
He tried to think of some way to lure the guards out. So he could deal with them on his terms, ambushing them in the corridor. He went with the only idea that came to him, which was to knock loudly on the door and then hide out of sight. He wished he could do something larger, break something, make some real noise, and get all of the guards to leave the guardroom and go scampering through the building while he slipped in and stole the transmitter. But unfortunately, any ruse that was large enough to draw all of the guards away would also probably trigger some kind of emergency protocol, and the guards would probably lockdown the building, if not the entire camp, as they did a security sweep. Probably check on the prisoners too, and count them.
So this knocking would have to do. He pounded on the door then darted aside. Listening as the door slid open. “Is someone there?” a man’s voice could be heard. “I could have sworn.” Nimoux waited just around the corner, expecting to hear footsteps as the guard searched the corridor for the phantom door knocker.
Instead the door slid shut without another sound. Lazy guards…
Nimoux repeated the process. Knocking and hiding a second time.
“All right just what the hell?” the man barked after opening the door again and seeing no one. This time, to Nimoux’s relief, he heard the impatient footsteps of the guard draw near. The guard was searching the corridor for the source of the knocking. “This had better not be some sort of joke,” he growled.
It isn’t, thought Nimoux as he snuck up behind the guard and, in a single quick motion, clamped his left hand tightly over the man’s mouth while his right arm curled around his neck. Nimoux applied enough pressure to cut off the guard’s carotid arteries and, after a few seconds, he became unconscious, collapsing limply in Nimoux’s arms. Nimoux tightened his grip, making certain to completely obstruct the airway, as he dragged the guard around the corner and out of sight, in case another guard emerged from the guardroom to check on his friend.
Unlike the sandy-haired cellmate who’d done nothing to warrant imprisonment here and the
refore deserved to live, this guard had voluntarily made himself an enemy combatant. Someone who actively worked to keep the prisoners unjustly locked away, had perhaps even assisted in some of the abductions, and probably had orders to help with any extermination of the prisoners that was likely to occur. Nimoux therefore had no moral difficulty at all in his decision to kill the guard to purchase his silence.
In order to kill, Nimoux had to think like a machine. He had to remind himself that enemy combatants were a lethal threat to his life and the mission. Nimoux did not enjoy killing, least of all when he had to do it with his bare hands, but it was a necessary skill that had been part of his special forces experience, and that knowledge had lent itself—fortunately only rarely—to his work as an Intel Wing operative. And now he would use it to escape this prison planet and warn the Empire.
He laid the unmoving soldier down and withdrew the combat knife strapped to the man’s leg. It appeared to be the only weapon he had on his person. Not having enough time to wait for the guard to completely asphyxiate, and not wanting to weaponlessly kill him through a blunt strike to his throat or head which would have been the usual go-to option—since Nimoux never relied on the snap-the-neck method which he considered to be both difficult and unreliable. Instead he rolled the guard onto his stomach and very swiftly plunged the knife through the indent at base of the man’s skull, where the bone was the thinnest, angled upwards. The knife punched through with ease. Shredding the target’s medulla oblongata with its serrated edge.
Nimoux withdrew the knife and spun away from the corpse, needing to remain focused on the mission at hand and not obsess over the gruesome details of what he’d just been forced to do. Especially when the night promised to get bloodier.
He took up a good striking position at the periphery of the door, waiting for the other guard to leave the guardroom, thinking there probably was one and that he’d notice his fellow guard hadn’t returned. Ten seconds passed and the door didn’t budge. Nimoux wondered if that meant the guard he’d just killed had been the only one in the guardroom. He hoped so. But, just in case…
The Phoenix War Page 26
