Starchild exile, p.7
Starchild- Exile, page 7
Benton moved toward a terminal and began chiseling into the system. Without the simple bit of information he was after, it would take them cycles just to find their mark in this loathsome place.
A pair of redhelms started prodding Liink, but Dray was forced to maintain his poise, acting as if he didn’t notice or care what they might do to his friend. This exchange ended with Liink taking a blow to the neck. Dray wanted to show sympathy, but more was at stake than physical pain.
The assistant returned with a tray containing the fourteen small packages. “That’s an awful lot,” said the guard.
Dray stared with the lifeless face of his mask, not condescending a reply. In silence, he took the packages. “Thank you.” He turned on his heel and walked out.
Not only was he risking his life, he was now carrying a small fortune, which he nonchalantly put in his pack as he made his way to the elevators. “Which floor, Benton?”
“Twenty seven.”
Dray pressed a button, and they descended twenty-seven stories underground.
* * *
As they dropped deep below Toar’s surface, they felt and heard a deep rumbling.
It reminded Dray of the fiery otherworld he’d climbed through to escape this place.
The elevator doors opened again, revealing a long, narrow corridor with security gates along it, but guards only manned the farthest of these gates.
Benton and Liink stayed aboard the elevator while Dray stepped off.
As he walked toward the cell block, he gestured to the two redhelms standing guard. “You two, come with me.” He said it with perfect confidence.
The two redhelms fell into step.
Some had doubted whether he should come, saying he was too valuable for such a high-risk mission, but he believed no one else could’ve performed this role.
The soldiers followed him without questioning, exactly as they were trained to do—not to think, only to obey. It was endemic of the whole galaxy. Still, these redhelm’s docile servitude didn’t merit the punishment they were about to suffer, but he knew no other way. “And call your backups too.”
One of the redhelms put his fingers to the gray circle on the side of his helmet and requested backup.
At the end of the corridor, the ambiance transformed from brightness to misery. There the hallway opened into a massive room that housed a stack of concrete cells, three stories high, with balconies lining each row. The railings were speckled with rust. Concrete floors and cement made up the rest of it, beaten down by percents and people, exposing corroded, leaking ruin in chaotic patterns. This being so far beneath the surface, heat floated in, bringing mugginess and insects. Iron pipes crossed overhead suspending dim light bulbs. These lit the central area but hardly any light reached the cells. With the prisoners all sedated, no guards directly watched the cellblock, just as Dray expected.
Although he hadn’t been to this floor before, he knew what the cells looked like. Each one had a fist-sized hole in the floor, doubling as a drain and a toilet. A small faucet came out of the wall for washing. Reds, browns, yellows, and greens stained the floors in billowing patterns. Doors with yellowing hinges sealed them shut, stamped with electronic locks. Each door had a tiny window covered by a metal mesh, but the outer room was so dim, it hardly let light inside.
A second pair of redhelms caught up to the group. If something went wrong within the cell block, this second pair would be the first to come snooping around. By collecting both pairs, he’d bought a lot more time. And so, with the four redhelms in tow, Dray descended the stairs to the lowest floor of the cell block. “Form up.”
They did as commanded, lining up side by side, heads held high, feet shoulder-width apart, their hands clasped behind their backs.
Dray mimicked this pose, grabbing the prism hidden at the base of his pack.
His eyes glowed white.
He started swinging before even powering on the weapon.
In a flash of light, the blade shot out, a streak of blazing orange, and it cut through two of the guards.
The psykatana vanished just as the stroke completed its momentum, leaving Dray standing over two corpses with nothing in his hands but an empty handle pointed at the wall.
To most people, including the two surviving soldiers, the blade’s appearance would’ve been a complete surprise. Psykatanas were rare and those with the power to activate them much rarer.
The two surviving redhelms shrank to the ground, instinctively cowering. If Dray meant to kill them too, he would’ve done it already.
He took a step back, putting a slight distance between him and them, knowing that if they decided to strike, the distance would give him the necessary time to react. Looking at the corpses on the ground, he said, “I advise you not to touch your comms, or you will join them. Now, tell me the access code.”
Their masked faces stared silently, in what he assumed must be shock and horror. Their bodies remained rigid, unmoving.
He had neither the time nor patience for no response at all.
Without stepping close enough for actual contact, Dray made a motion as if reaching over one soldier’s helmet and gripping the back rim. As he jerked his hand down through the air, the soldier leaned forward violently, and the helmet clattered across the floor, revealing the terrified face of a young man. Dray stepped closer, and his glowing blade shot out again, this time lingering. He leveled it at the young man’s throat.
The soldier collapsed back, begging: “No!”
The other soldier stood and ran.
Dray pointed his arm at the escaper and clenched a clawed hand in the air.
The soldier’s neck jerked back, and he twisted to the side, falling to his hands and knees. Dray’s arm dipped at the same time, but he strained at his empty grip. This solder pulled off his own helmet and reached for the ghostly fingers around his throat.
With his left arm still raised in a clenched grip toward his choking victim, Dray moved the burning psykatana closer to the first soldier’s throat, backing him against the cell door. “Tell me the access code.”
The soldier stared with bulging eyes. “Hinterland! It’s hinterland!”
“And the collars?”
“One zero six four two.”
The sequence echoed in Dray’s mind, making itself ready for later recall.
His blade vanished, and with the hand that gripped the prismatic handle, Dray punched the code into the nearest cell. The bars slid open. “Come out of there.”
The inmate obeyed, shuffling forward from the shadows, and then moving quickly past Dray.
Dray looked down at the cowering soldier. “Get inside.”
The soldier obeyed, with shame written on his face.
Dray’s arm finally fell as he called to the other one. “You too.”
The second soldier gasped deep breaths, his frantic hands now finally still. Without looking at Dray, he skulked into the cell, and Dray closed it behind them. With their helmets outside, they couldn’t get help.
Through ptolis, he also detected cowering defiance emanating from inside the cell. He knew how this military worked and the harsh punishments that would soon come their way. Hoping to lighten their burdens, he spoke toward the tiny metal mesh over the window: “Circumstance killed your comrades. I couldn’t have managed all four of you. That’s all. They died in the line of duty. That is a noble end for any soldier. Do not blame yourselves.” He didn’t wait for them to respond.
Dray already felt the repercussions of his action. It weighed on his soul. He felt glad at least that Benton hadn’t been around to see the slaughter. He closed his eyes, and through ptolis a single word echoed from his mind and out across spacetime:
Ready.
He turned around and saw the whites of eyes staring out from the grated cell window across from him, but they faded back into the shadows when he looked their way. Then he noticed more onlookers from nearly every cell above and around him. He looked back with indifference, unable to reflect their curiosity. He knew their situation.
The captive Dray had already freed now stood in the center of the space, too bewildered to run. Not much showed of her figure, and like all the inmates, her head was clean shaven, but Dray guessed from her size she was female, probably not dissimilar from the woman they’d come to liberate. She wore a gray uniform that had been soiled and cleaned many times. Her gaze showed fear, a dull fear, like the unsure perceptions of a child just awoken.
Dray made a pulling gesture with his fingers: “Come here.”
She didn’t move.
“I won’t harm you. Come here.”
She responded to his command, though not quickly, tilting her head to the side and carefully approaching. She was in here because of him. Because he’d founded the Witch Hunters. Because he’d gone along with what his government told him.
“What’s your name?”
“Darson.” Her tone was as frail and lowly as a blade of grass. It could’ve been someone like her who gave him that strange feeling when he entered this place.
Dray’s eyes flicked upward, toward the spectators above. “You know a woman named Whitesun?”
Darson shook her head.
“Let me help you get that collar off.”
She stood there like a cautious animal.
He stepped toward her slowly, gently, not looking directly at her. He had to be quite close to her to take the collar in one hand and punch the release code with the other. It clicked as it unlocked. He took it off carefully and then set it quietly on the ground.
When it was done, she didn’t step away. Instead, she just looked up at him, as if anticipating further instructions.
“I have something for you, Darson.”
The prisoner lifted a cupped hand, fingers curling back timidly. A tiny insect crawled from her sleeve and then took flight.
Dray drew a packet of kerse. From it, he pinched a small sampling of the slivers. Next he rolled his fingers together till he could feel just two of the glass shafts still between them. He dropped these into the woman’s palm. “You know what that is?”
Darson lifted her hand up to her eyes, squinting, then nodded her skull.
More spectators appeared on the upper floors behind Dray, cramming their faces to the tiny windows for a better look. “You know what to do with it?”
The ragged woman nodded.
“Then do it. And quickly. Guards will be here soon.” Without waiting to see his orders carried out, he stepped left and faced the next dark cell.
Behind him, Darson pinched one of the slivers in her lips for safekeeping while she crouched to the dirty ground. She pinned the other glass needle standing upright between the floor and her palm. Then she slammed her hand down.
The kerse seemed to wash over her system like ice water. She became immediately brighter and keener than before, alert with life and dead calm. She slammed the next needle into the meat of her palm as well. If she didn’t know how to use her radiance before, she would now. She’d be a force to be reckoned with.
Dray couldn’t see anyone in the next cell. Then his eyes began to glow white with starsight, and the occupant became a hot spot amid cold darkness. “Darson, go ahead of me and release them one at a time. The access code is hinterland.”
She did as commanded.
He asked the next prisoner to follow her and take off all the collars. And he came third, giving each of the captives two slivers of kerse and assigning a floor number, going downward from twenty seven.
He heard one prisoner explaining to another how to use the gift.
Then Benton’s voice sounded over the murmur: “Wait, you’re freeing all of them?”
“The door code is hinterland. The collar is one zero six four two.”
Benton strode along the third level. “You never told me that was your plan. What if they’re killed escaping?”
“They’re too valuable to be killed. Plus some will make it out.” He hoped plenty of the radiance would make it. They could flee to one of the nearby mining towns, find a new identity, perhaps even get a ticket through the surge gate. “Besides we won’t get a better distraction than this.”
“You said explosives. That’s why we brought Liink.”
Dray still said nothing. He’d known Benton wouldn’t like it, so he made secrecy part of the plan—outlined to the last detail as usual. He’d calculated this as more likely to succeed. It was still only a probability though.
Fortunately, Benton hadn’t the time for more debate. He’d nearly made it to Kalhette Whitesun’s cell, the woman they’d risked so much for. Hopefully her role in the revolution would be worth the price.
As the freed inmates made their way to the elevators, Dray thought of Spalkur down on floor eighty-two. That floor felt like it still belonged to him in a way. He hoped they’d reach her too. He wanted her to be free. Maybe some cycle he could come back and make sure it happened.
The escapees formed a veritable army. If they obeyed their orders and freed more radiances on the lower floors, they’d all have a greater chance of escape. But he couldn’t control that outcome, and he expected lots to head upward instead, making a dash to the exit, keeping the kerse he’d given them for themselves. It was a shortsighted choice, but he wouldn’t blame them. That was how people were.
He glanced at his chronometer, calculating his own exit plan.
Then alarms started blaring.
* * *
Red lights flashed on the face of Kalhette Whitesun.
She had a pale, weak-looking figure with a shaven head. She seemed to be in pain, squinting. One arm hung over Benton’s shoulder, and she limped alongside. Dray knew exactly how she felt.
They got quickly away from the massive riot Dray had just unleashed above—
A parting gift to General Venette.
Dray led the foursome through a series of maintenance hallways that cut deeper into Toar’s roiling underground. Then they cut through a round pipe big enough for him to stand upright in.
It led to a pair of sealed metal doors.
“It’s these.” Dray ignited his psykatana and, in a blaze of light, sliced through the hinges and lock. He stepped back, gripped the air, and pulled. As the door tilted, he rushed his hands over his ears. The door landed with a bang! This escape would be more straightforward. It also helped to have a psykatana. He ominously locked eyes with Benton. “That shaft right there will lead to the surface. You take her first and move as quickly as you can. Liink and I will be right behind you.”
“Yes, sir.” Benton helped Kalhette toward the pipe.
Dray turned around.
Through ptolis, he still felt that mysterious presence. Now his instinct told him something else was coming. He stepped back into the previous hallway and turned to Liink. “Keep an eye on their progress, and report back to me. I want to watch this access point.” He walked on.
Liink nodded at the orders and didn’t follow.
Dray went back through that massive pipe and into the reactor room. It was lit with panels of glowing lights of various colors, but it was the entrance on the far side that drew his attention. Red lights from sirens in the hallway beyond illuminated the door frame.
His escape plan left a trail of their actions on the security cameras, a necessity of their hurry, and it was only a matter of time till troops came to stop their escape. He expected the riot to keep anyone from noticing too soon. That was a matter of probability though.
His instinct prodded him again, a sense of something coming, stringing through his heart. He cocked his chin in the direction he felt it.
Liink came running back up to him. “They’re about halfway up it.”
It wasn’t far enough though.
“Liink, I want you to follow them out.”
“What about you?”
“Don’t wait for me. You need to get the Prophetess back to the rendezvous point. That’s the mission.”
“But you’re coming, right?”
Dray could think of no fate more awful than being subjected to the torment of Building 13 again. He would, in fact, rather die, and he expected that would be the case. A hint of honor drove him to defend his friends, but it did not move him so much as his remorse. He’d carried the guilt for so long. In a way, he deserved this. This and more. “I will come if I can.”
Liink looked at him with fright in his young eyes: “What if you can’t? Let me stay and fight with you.”
Dray did not respond to the question. Instead, his aspect communicated one sentiment: that it must be. He kept his stoic, impassive stare fixed on the young miin. And he faced the reality that he might not be overseeing the battle for independence after all. “Liink, go. Protect the Prophetess. Do you understand?”
In the end, Liink was an obedient soldier. “Yes, sir.”
“Now go!”
As Liink ran back toward the ventilation shaft, he glanced back over his shoulder, one last look.
Dray realized he could see the end of his life from here.
The end of his tragic story. He would now pay all he had against his debt and would still come up devastatingly short. He hoped whatever waited in the otherworld would show him mercy.
Ahead of him, hoards of soldiers came running through that flashing-red door, too many for one normal man to challenge. They piled through, flowing into the room, spreading out, rifles at the ready, preparing to surround him. He backed up into the massive pipe.
It made the perfect choke point. It would force them to face him barely one at a time, allowing him to delay.
And Benton would have time to make it outside with the girl.
But Dray wasn’t going to make it.
That seemed increasingly certain. But the revolution would proceed without him, and that gave him some hope.
As the reality of the situation settled, two emotions appeared in Dray’s mind, but these were neither fear nor regret. The first was sadness, sadness that he might never see his beloved again.
The second was rage, rage toward the force standing in front of him.
With this godlike rage, he wanted to first challenge the ethics of their pursuit, and when they failed to give a satisfactory answer, he would execute their just punishment on the spot, doing what others should’ve done to him many times over.
