Some lessons in life are learned the hard way.
Mike and Keelan meet each other as opposites in a prison where violence, murder, and power games are everyday life. To survive they make a pact. They stand together against the rough life in a hell where the prisoners are nothing more than numbers in a book and left to their own fates—a fate where one’s place in a twisted hierarchy is paramount for survival.
But can a mercenary who worked for the law trust a murderer?
Can that murderer trust the mercenary?
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Learning the Hard Way One
Copyright © 2017 H.P. Caledon
ISBN: 978-1-4874-0983-8
Cover art by Erin Dameron-Hill
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Learning the Hard Way One
By
H.P. Caledon
Dedication
To reach our goals in life we are sometimes helped along and supported in crossing hurdles by strong and great people. I, too, have met people like this—people who saw something others didn’t at the time and took action.
Thank you for all your help.
Chapter One
My mind is completely blank. Thoughts refuse to stay in my dazed head long enough to be completed. On second thought it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been sitting here for three hours now... three months actually, but I only just came out of cryo-sleep. The past three hours feels like three months, though.
Eleven other men sit around me—most of them lacking as much facial color as I probably do. Two of them don’t seem intelligent enough to know why they should be afraid.
No matter how many times I cursed myself for having taken that assignment, it doesn’t change anything now. No matter how much I hate that corrupt judge, it doesn’t change the fact that I sit here shackled in the belly of a prison transport.
Medium security prison—Delta Zeich. Shit! However much I want to keep my dignity, I seriously dread pissing myself. When the transport lands in the docking area and the ramp goes down, I’ll lose control over my bladder.
Unless I get to empty it first, that is.
The monotonous hum in the hull seemed almost soothing to Mike, and with a cryo-fog hanging over their heads the twelve men swayed drowsily. Two guards sat at the end of the gangway—both comfortably sprawled in their seats with their weapons leaning against them. From there they were keeping an eye on the prisoners.
“Hey, can I use the toilet?” asked Mike.
“Can’t you hold it a bit longer?” a guard complained.
“I’ve been holding it for three months.”
The guards exchanged glances before one of them sighed loudly and got up.
“Name and number?”
“Matthews, Mike T, number four-four-eight.”
The guard entered something into a computer in the wall, and Mike’s shackles were released from the rack in front of him.
“On your feet... step forward onto the middle gangway and face me... arms out front, palms up.”
Mike did as he was told, grateful that he’d asked to use the toilet in time. With the whole procedure and with a guard that indifferent, a man in serious need would have cried yellow tears from exertion by that point.
“Hurry up,” the guard mumbled, shoving him through the door to the toilet before leaning against the doorframe to watch. Mike half-turned.
“Can I piss in private?”
The guard once again sighed loudly and closed the door. Mike turned to the toilet, groaning in relief as the pressure on his bladder subsided.
Just because my bladder is empty there’s bound to be a reaction anyway. Mike straightened his clothes. He felt nauseous and envied the two idiots opposite his own row. Splashing cold water in his face made the cryo-fog subside a bit, but he was still tired. He felt as if he was walking beside himself and with his head inside a bell.
A loud knocking on the door dragged Mike back to reality.
“Come on, no one accumulates that much piss in three months of cryo,” the guard yelled. Mike turned and stared angrily at the door.
“Incompetent ass,” he mumbled and left the toilet. The guard nudged him back to the holding area. Mike plumped back into his seat and held the shackles into the rack, which closed with a metallic click.
“How long until we land? Do you know?” asked the man next to Mike. Mike looked at him out the corner of his eye. Never before had he seen a man that ugly, gangly, and out of proportion. But it was something in his eyes that really called for pity.
“Hopefully in a year, it was just a mistake they awoke us from cryo.”
“Really?” The hope in the man’s eyes cut into Mike.
“No. We begin the approach in a few hours.”
The hope in the man’s eyes died and suddenly Mike’s nausea didn’t seem that bad. The ugly little man seemed to feel much worse.
“You been here before?” the prisoner next to the ugly man asked. Mike leaned forward and looked at him. He recognized him as a robber who’d been wanted for about six months. Jared something.
“No,” Mike answered, leaning back.
“Then how do you know it’s only a few hours?”
Mike swallowed, contemplating his answer.
“Such is the procedure at any other prison, why not this one?”
“Ah,” Jared said, leaning back.
The rest of the trip passed in silence. Everyone turned paler and paler with the exception of the two idiots. One even managed to laugh at the other idiot’s lame jokes.
Whether the nausea had become worse or it was all in his head, Mike couldn’t tell. He still had to concentrate on his breathing as they were hustled down the ramp and out onto the dock.
“Is the prison this big?” the ugly little man asked, looking around.
“This is a dock, and they come bigger,” Mike said while the other prisoners looked around in awe. The guards there looked more vigilant than the two who’d been watching them on their way over. But that didn’t impress Mike either. It wouldn’t take much effort to outdo them.
Mike ended up somewhere in the middle of the row as they were led through the inner gates and down a hallway.
“Stop!” a guard yelled. “Turn left!”
“What’re we, in the military?” Jared whispered, leaning slightly toward Mike.
“If you had been, you’d have learned to shut up when in formation,” Mike whispered. A guard took three long strides toward them and swung Jared a solid right hook, sending him backward out of line. Another guard caught him and shoved him back into place beside Mike.
“You don’t talk unless I te
ll you to!” the first guard yelled.
“Yeah, yeah!” Jared said, regaining his balance.
“Into the cells!” the guard bellowed. Mike walked in and heard the lattice doors behind him slam shut.
“Fuck, what a blow. Why didn’t he hit you?”
“As I said, had you served, you would have learned to shut up.” Mike sat on the bunk before sending Jared a wry smile. “Or you would have learned to chat undetected.”
“So you’re military. What the hell are you doing here?”
“I was. Like so many others, I too was broke after serving.”
“Silence!” A man came into view at the end of the hall. “Step forward!”
All names were called out and crossed off a list before they were left alone for four hours, only interrupted by an overdue trip under the showers, the mandatory tattooing of their rap sheet onto their left upper arm, and something to eat.
The guards’ strides had changed. The doors slammed open and all prisoners got to their feet.
“Out here, form a line!”
Jared looked wonderingly at Mike, whose nausea had returned. He did what he could to hide it and his fear as they were gathered and led toward two enormous iron doors. Mike thought they looked like the entrance to Hell. Two guards opened the heavy doors slowly, and the noises pouring out from the growing slit reinforced Mike’s suspicion that Hell was right in front them.
“Come on, in with you!” The brusque-looking guard waved a cattle prod over his head. The other guards shoved the crowded prisoners toward the entrance just big enough for them to be squeezed through. Mike looked at it with the same horror one would an open hole into the core of a planet.
Same fate waited. Death.
Brutal hands grabbed at them as they came through the crack. They were shoved around, and the chaos made it nearly impossible to see who was pushing or even what the surroundings were made of. Mike realized quick enough—raw and rugged stone. He only avoided smashing his face into the wall when someone’s hand moved in the way. Instead of trying to inspect his surroundings, Mike began concentrating on his breathing. The air was pent up as it was. Standing somewhere among the many pushing and shoving prisoners inside the prison itself gave the air a not so appealing odor of bad hygiene. He could easily throw up and let people think it was the stench and not fear that caused it.
A loud and clear voice cut through the noise.
“Round them up and get them up here!”
The crowd began moving, and Mike clutched onto the others so he wouldn’t fall and be stomped into the uneven stone floor. They were guided up some stairs and placed along the back wall, giving Mike a clear view of the chaos.
The row of new prisoners was spread out on a podium of sorts. A man stood with his back to them, yelling to the assembled crowd. All the prisoners seemed to be gathered in the... hall? The prison was three stories high, and by the railings, prisoners were jammed closely together, looking down on them. Even in front of the podium prisoners were crowding, while the biggest and roughest prisoners walked the podium, looking alert.
The prison had once been a mine. Iron bars, vents, and old conveyer lines still hung under the ceiling, and by the looks of it, the railings were made of the scraps taken down when the mine was taken out of commission.
“Let the auction begin!” the man on the podium yelled, snapping Mike out of his thoughts. The ugly little man, who’d been sitting next to Mike, was hauled to the front of the podium and presented to the crowd, which yelled.
“Throw that one back.”
“There’s no meat on him.”
“I’m not even horny enough to jump on the back of that.”
“He’ll rattle like bones in a sack.”
“Looks like you get to swim, fish.” The auctioneer laughed and pushed the trembling man aside. The little man looked grateful as he stumbled away, but none of the cons stepped aside to let him pass. He was left fumbling about, nervously, until he found a corner to curl up in.
The auctioneer held out his arm toward the line on the podium and two big guys hauled Mike to the front. His gut twisted and the air around him seemed to lose all oxygen. He tried his best to appear unaffected by the situation—difficult task as the many voices carried up to him.
“Now that’s better.”
“Lovely little ass on that one.”
“Ha, he fits perfectly in my bunk.”
“I always did have a weakness for blonds.”
The auctioneer’s smile broadened as he walked back and forth, egging the crown on.
“Well, well, well, sounds like we will have a good fight today after all. And I can definitely see why. Might even put a bet in myself.” The auctioneer wiggled his tongue at Mike.
“Fuck you,” Mike spat out. The auctioneer roared laughter before slapping Mike across the face, hard enough to make him bite his lip.
“Hey, don’t bruise the merchandise,” a guy shouted, earning himself a laugh from the people around him.
“Who’ll fight for this one?” the auctioneer shouted, pointing at Mike. Several men stepped forward, forming a new line in the empty space in front of the podium. Mike’s nausea increased.
“Here!” a prisoner yelled, stepping forward, and an odd-looking little man disappeared from the line of fighters. The prisoner looked up and held Mike’s gaze.
“Well, well, well,” the auctioneer howled. “We have a fish fighting for a fish!” He pointed at the prisoner. Behind the prisoner, a smaller blond man stepped forward, and the smile on the auctioneer’s face disappeared. “Looks like Rainer got himself a new fighter,” he said more quietly. Two men from the line of fighters stepped back—three left to fight. “The rules are as follows!” the auctioneer continued, working the crowd as a true entertainer. “One on one, no dirty tricks... who am I kidding with this crowd? Everything goes!”
The reaction from the mob was like an explosion in Mike’s ears. Rainer’s young fighter turned toward the two others while the spectators shouted and howled on their chosen fighter. The little blond man suddenly pointed up into the air to show Rainer’s new man something. Mike looked that way, too. Behind a big window under the ceiling, several guards sat comfortably with their feet up, enjoying beverages.
Great, we’re just the entertainment.
The nausea increased and hopelessness grew in Mike. All he hoped for was a merciful death.
“Tell you what, fighter of Rainer. Since this is your first time buying, we’ll cut you some slack.” The auctioneer looked up at someone on the top stairs. Mike didn’t see who or where exactly, but he saw the fighter nod in the same direction. “The winner among the two of you will fight Rainer’s fighter.”
The fight between the first two started, but Mike kept his eyes on Rainer’s fighter. It wasn’t his size that worried him. He’d handled guys like that before, even a few who were bigger—massive beefs without speed or agility. It was the fighter’s eyes that scared Mike—calm, intense, and above all, intelligent. It was the weighing glance with which he studied the two fighting that told of his abilities. Those two were a joke. One was strong but slow, the other one unfocused.
A scream of pain and a roar from the crowd, and the fight was over—the big guy had won the first round.
“Oh, little fish. I saw your fight for freedom in the arena. Impressive. But then again you weren’t fighting me,” the big guy said. Mike could see the whole of his mouth and the lack of teeth. Rainer’s fighter seemed unmoved by the mocking.
Slowly the two fighters began to circle each other while the toothless fighter made noises Mike guessed were supposed to be the sounds of a warrior. The grunts of a pig were what they reminded Mike of.
Finally, the toothless guy attacked, and Rainer’s fighter pulled out what resembled a homemade shiv with one hand and a grabbed a chain hanging from the railing with the other. The chain came down and the young fighter swung it, wrapping it around the big guy’s neck. He then ran around him and finally set off on the wall wi
th both feet to put enough leverage behind to pull the guy off balance. With a loud thud the big guy landed on the floor along with the young fighter, who rolled all the way over and into the line of spectators.
He quickly got up and ran around to the back of the big guy, who, swearing and cursing, got up on all fours, looking around for his opponent. The young fighter jumped and embedded the shiv in the back of the man’s head severing the spinal cord and puncturing the brain. The big guy fell limp to the floor. The young fighter pulled out his shiv and wiped it off on the man’s pants while the crowd roared and cheered.
“Well, well, well, that was quite a show,” the auctioneer shouted. “Looks like you got yourself an owner now, fish. The rules say you can fight for your freedom in the arena. Wanna give it a shot?”
“Hell yeah,” Mike said, but Rainer’s fighter scared him. Especially the way the man seemed to be studying him. Mike felt transparent.
“You do know that you’ll be fighting me, right?” the fighter asked, smiling in a way that made Mike’s attempt to keep his nonchalant façade in place very difficult. The fighter hopped onto the platform and closed the distance between them, stopping only a few inches’ shy of Mike. “Come quietly and you might live longer.”
Mike’s breath hitched and he felt beads of sweat form on his forehead, but he had to stay calm. If the fighter didn’t already know who he was, then...
“What’s it gonna be? Merc?” The last word was whispered so only Mike heard it, but everything in him froze by that one little word. Mike finally looked up into the fighter’s eyes and nodded. “He withdraws from the fight in the arena.”
“Is that true?” the auctioneer asked. Mike nodded.
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