by Tammy Walsh
What did these guys have to worry about? I thought. Their lives actually meant something.
They weren’t going to be tossed to the wolves the way I was.
They weren’t going to be forced to dress up in lingerie and paraded in front of ogling and howling dangerous prisoners.
They weren’t going to be handed over to a random alien fighter to be used as he wished.
I shook my head of the steaming hot tears threatening to spill down my cheeks once more.
I had just begun to get used to my place inside the prison when I escaped.
Now I had to get used to it all over again.
Only this time, it was worse.
I wished Egara had never rescued me.
I wished I’d never laid eyes on him.
I wished I’d never chosen that dress with the pendant he liked.
I wished…
I wished…
Oh, I didn’t know what I wished for!
I didn’t regret meeting him.
I didn’t regret sleeping with him.
And I definitely didn’t regret escaping with him.
It was the best thing that’d happened to me during my entire time at Ikmal.
I wouldn’t let my own selfish self-pity get in the way of that.
I would push through this setback the way I pressed through everything else.
I was a survivor, a fighter.
Just like Egara.
Crunk!
The van came to an immediate halt and tossed the guards forward, sliding along the benches and crashing into each other.
The van sat twisted at an unnatural angle having face-planted in a sandy ravine.
Odd, I thought, considering the truck didn’t have wheels.
It floated.
“All right,” the leader said. “Everybody out.”
The guards groaned as they shoved me out the back.
The drones caught me before my head hit the ground.
They drifted to one side, taking me a safe distance.
My back was to the vehicle and it was difficult to make out what’d happened.
I twisted in an attempt to get the drones to turn with me but they were at the wrong angle.
I growled, wishing I’d kept up with yoga classes.
Then I realized something.
Just because my legs were attached to the drones didn’t mean I couldn’t bend my knees and shift my weight.
I flexed one knee and used the extra leverage to peer over my shoulder at the vehicle.
The front corner lay partially buried in the sand and one of the glowing blue engines fizzled with sparks.
Looked like a malfunction, much like getting a flat.
I guess even futuristic technology failed from time to time.
“Can you fix it?” the leader said to the guard probing at it with his tools.
“I can,” he said. “But it’s going to take time.”
“How much time?”
Please say years, I thought.
“About five or six hours,” he said.
Hours didn’t feel like enough.
Enough for what? I wondered.
Enough to escape and get out of here.
I didn’t know how I could think that was a possibility but a spark burst into life in my heart.
It was a chance.
And a chance, no matter how slim, was always better than having none at all.
The prison guards set up camp in the middle of the desert.
The moons took turns in peeking out from behind their curtains of clouds.
A prison guard removed the metal manacles attached to my ankles.
It was an awkward and uncomfortable maneuver as he released first one leg, which I could barely bring to the desert floor, and then the other.
The drones took off immediately and swung in wide arcs around the camp.
The prison guard clapped off his hands and marched away to deal with something else.
None of the guards paid much attention to me and were busy carrying out their own tasks.
I peered into the darkness surrounding us and wondered if I could sneak into the night without them noticing.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” a deep voice said.
I turned to find the leader crouched beside a hole in the desert.
He snapped something in his hands that immediately burst into flames and he dropped it in the hole where the fire grew larger.
He poked it with a knife to encourage further growth.
The leader hadn’t raised his eyes and might not have been speaking with me.
But with how the other guards paid him no attention, there couldn’t be anyone else he was talking to.
“The desert is a dangerous place at the best of times,” he said. “Even worse at night when you can’t see much beyond the end of your nose.”
He prodded the fire one last time and it belched like a baby cupped over its mother’s shoulder.
The leader’s armor was strewn with dents from the myriad of fights he must have been through in his day.
His features were covered by his helmet but I felt his eyes on me through his visor.
“I wasn’t going to run,” I said defensively.
“No?” he said. “If I were in your situation, I would have thought about it at least. I doubt there’s a prisoner who wouldn’t.”
“Well, I’m not a prisoner,” I said without much conviction.
Not a prisoner technically but what else did you call it when you were locked up in a room and not allowed to leave?
The leader’s head dropped to my legs and I shied away, nervous to be surrounded by so many men.
I’d gotten used to having eyes on me during the past year but these men were guards.
They had protected me in the past and I thought of them as nothing more than robots going about their business.
To see them surrounding me now when no one would get in the way if they decided to have their way with me, was disconcerting to say the least.
Strange, that they should be my protectors one day and potential villains in the next.
He nodded to my ankles.
“You’re hurt. I have to apologize for my men. They can be a little rough in pursuing their duties.”
He was motioning to the marks on my shins from where the drones had fastened their clasps.
“It wasn’t your men that did it,” I said. “It was the drones.”
He crouched beside me and I shied back.
He reached into his pocket and came out with a small pastel blue vial the shape of a smooth clamshell.
The leader cracked it open and dipped a finger inside it.
He reached for the marks on my legs and I pulled away again.
“It’s a cream for friction burns,” he said. “It’s nothing dangerous.”
He rubbed it over his own skin to demonstrate.
“Sometimes the helmet or armor rubs and it can be sore something fierce.”
I still didn’t like the idea of him touching me, so I extended my hand.
He gave the vial to me and smiled.
“You have nothing to fear from us. We won’t harm you. It’s our duty to protect the Prizes. One of them, anyway.”
“Sometimes you don’t do such a good job,” I snapped.
“Not when you’re in the cells, maybe. But we do a good enough job the rest of the time.”
I sniffed the cream and slipped my finger into it.
It was cool and pleasant to the touch, like moisturizer.
I applied it to my skin and hissed through my teeth at the sting it produced.
The manacles had rubbed the top layer of my skin off and left it open to the elements.
It wasn’t too bad, I thought. So long as I kept it clean, it shouldn’t get infected.
“What made you come out here with the prisoner in the first place?” the leader said.
“Because I wanted to escape,” I almost said before catching myself.
I recalled the
story Egara had told me that night he thought his crew had abandoned him with no shuttlecraft.
They were good excuses, even if he had said it while he was in a dark place.
“I didn’t choose to come out,” I said. “Egara—that’s the name of the prisoner— he made me go with him.”
“Is that so?”
Damn, I wish I could see his expression.
It was hard to gauge what someone really meant when you couldn’t see their face.
“Yes,” I said. “You don’t honestly think I would come out here by choice, did you?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“Why would I do something so stupid as that?”
“I’ve seen some funny things in the prison. Sometimes the Prizes develop… feelings for those they shouldn’t.”
“They do?”
I snorted but even to me it sounded forced.
“It’s the first rule we have in the Prize Pool,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Never fall in love with the prisoners.”
“So why didn’t you refuse to leave when he took you?”
“Have you seen how big he is? He could crush me like a twig.”
“I often wonder about that. Some of these prisoners are real monsters. How were you able to… deal with them?”
Despite myself, I blushed.
“It’s… difficult sometimes,” I admitted. “But when you have no other road, what can you do?”
“But you did have a choice.”
“What choice? I either did what I was told or I would have been sold to God knows who. I don’t know about you but I prefer the devil I know than the one I don’t.”
The leader’s mouth curled beneath the visor.
I turned my head to one side, peering at the smile closer.
It wasn’t that it was an ugly smile that got my attention.
Far from it.
There was something about it I recognized.
I’d seen it before, I realized.
And not beneath a visor.
Somewhere else…
“I was kidnapped and forced to go with him,” I said, recalling where I was and what I was doing there.
It might not seem like it at first glance beneath the broad open sky and rolling sand dunes that echoed into the far distance, but I was every bit as much a prisoner here as I was inside.
“When the alarm went off, I knew I had to get somewhere safe,” I said. “I was trapped in Egara’s room and if I didn’t do what he said, I feared what he would do. We were in the middle of a riot. A girl does what she has to. The same way a guard must do his duty.”
“The two of you were out here a long time. You sure nothing happened between you two?”
I looked at him coolly.
“Nothing that didn’t happen in his cell,” I said, raising my chin.
That smile curled his cheek once more and memories stabbed at me from the darkness.
That smile rang alarm bells but I couldn’t identify their source.
“With the romantic atmosphere I thought something might develop between you,” the leader said.
“Nothing but open animosity. And if you must know, he sold me to the merchant back there. He wanted to exchange me for the shuttlecraft. He gave me to the merchant so he could escape. He got what he wanted. He’s probably halfway across the galaxy by now.”
The leader stared at me for a moment.
What was he looking for? I wondered. A sign I was lying?
I wanted to lick my lips but refrained from doing so.
I hated that visor he was wearing.
Understanding a man was hard enough without a shield in the way.
“Yes, I suppose he is,” he said, dropping his gaze to the sand. “Did he mention where he might go?”
I pinched my lips and peered upwards as if trying hard to remember.
“Not that I can recall. We didn’t talk much.”
I finished applying the cream to my injuries and extended the vial back to him.
“Keep it,” he said. “You might need it when you return to your… duties.”
And with that, he stood up, turned on his heel, and approached his men.
He slapped one on the back and issued an order.
The leader wasn’t stupid, that much was obvious.
But had I helped Egara?
Or had I told him too much?
In truth, I really didn’t know what Egara might do next.
Oh, I knew he would head back to the ship, would pick up the pieces of his old life, but I had no idea where that life existed.
I barely even knew where mine existed now.
Would he think of me? I wondered. Would he think of me in his quieter moments?
I thought so.
There was nothing worse than being forgotten.
Something nettled me about the leader’s tone of words.
They made me think he knew more about the relationship between a victor and his Prize than he was letting on.
I wondered what it was.
The prison guards carried armloads of poles that they stabbed into the sand at random intervals.
An opaque wall formed between them before turning milk-white and solidifying.
They were temporary structures of some kind.
I guess we would be staying here for the night.
Egara
The shuttlecraft breached the atmosphere with ease.
There was always the fear machinery would seize up when it was left lying around.
The shuttlecraft took the turbulence well and held itself together with strong resolve.
Better than I was, anyway.
Six times already I’d made to turn the shuttlecraft around and head back, to dive headlong into an attempt to rescue Agatha.
Maybe if I moved fast enough, attacked silently and without warning, I could rescue her without the prison guards knowing.
Yeah, right.
The guards had made a mistake in allowing me to escape once and they weren’t about to repeat it a second time.
The shuttlecraft shuddered as she broke through the outer atmosphere and the navy blue of deep space faded into darkness.
The noises and gyrations gave way, leaving me adrift and alone and silent.
It was so quiet without Agatha by my side.
I peered over at the co-pilot seat.
Where she should have been sitting.
My hair floated up and my body pressed against the restraints holding me down.
I couldn’t help but imagine how Agatha would have reacted to being out here.
She would have squealed, excited, and fearful all at the same time.
And she would have peered over at me with her beautiful eyes and beaming grin.
I tore my eyes from the apparition and turned the shuttlecraft toward the heavens that even God had never dreamed could be so majestic.
I hit the controls and brought up the holographic map of the cosmos.
“Computer,” I said, “locate the Wanderer.”
The map blinked, swirled, and pushed in on a cloud of stars known as the Warp Cluster.
I smiled.
My crew was busy dropping off a shipment to our secret booty location.
Already, they zipped through space, heading directly for me.
They would be here before long.
And the silence encroached once more.
Deafening.
Painful.
I peered once more at the empty chair.
I reached out a hand to run my fingers through invisible hair, to run a finger down her cheek, and peer into gorgeous eyes deeper even than the azure oceans on Octus Delta.
By the Creator, I miss her.
I regretted not turning back one of those six times I thought to head back and rescue her.
Even if it would have ended in disaster, at least I would have tried.
Wasn’t there still time? I thought. Couldn’t I reach her if I hurri
ed?
The Wanderer was coming as fast as she could, tearing through space at an unbelievable speed, and yet, it was not fast enough.
By the time they arrived, the prison guards would have returned to Ikmal and Agatha would meet whatever fate they deemed necessary.
Breaking into a prison was much easier than breaking out of one, I told myself.
I could already hear the arguments of disapproval from my crew.
“It’s too dangerous!” they would say. “We’ll all end up inside if you force us to do this!”
But there was no need to force them.
They were a good crew and would do it for the love they had for me.
No sooner had I escaped from Ikmal than I wanted to turn around and break back into it!
It was madness.
I peered at the vastness of space and contemplated my future in it.
Would it be with Agatha?
Or without her?
Agatha
I lay on the floor of my room peering up at the ceiling.
When the wind blew and ran its fingers across the material it produced beautiful waves like the seashore near my home back on Earth.
A seashore I was sure I would never see again.
I’d been given my own tent, perched between two others with a guard outside, his back to the roaring fire.
I peered out twice through the slit in the front, and both times, found him staring at me.
At least, his visor was peering directly at me.
Was he really staring at me or was he fast asleep?
With no way to know, I would take the threat seriously.
These were prison guards and they knew something about guarding prisoners.
And so here I lay, in a room in the middle of the desert beneath the stars.
I might as well be in a prison cell.
I dropped to my knees and felt at the room’s floor, searching for a gap to squeeze through.
There were no corners, no edges I could pry up.
I had to stop thinking of this room as a tent.
I was so close to escape, but yet again, had been thwarted.
But what did I think I would do even if I managed to escape?
I only survived as long as I did before thanks to Egara.
Without him, I would have been consumed long ago.
I laid back and tried not to get too comfortable.
If I stayed alert, maybe there would be an opening I could take advantage of.
