Warhawks amnesty a space.., p.2
Warhawk’s Amnesty: A Space Opera Harem Adventure, page 2
From what he’d read, given the need to conserve water during space travel, many ships were adopting similar systems, pulling pressure from other internal systems before venting them off into space. He was certain this was about as safe as the chemicals they used to shower with. Completely dry, Seb strolled his way back to the bench where he’d left his clothes. He took his time getting dressed, shoving the suit into his nose to ensure there was no lingering smell from his cellmate. Certain he was fine, he suited back up before heading into the common area.
Seeing the buckets and mops issued to the prisoners who stood in line earlier, Seb scurried past the guards and headed toward the cafeteria. With the cellblock opened, the noise was almost deafening. Five hundred prisoners smashed together in one of the five blocks echoed inside the interior hall like a concert of debauchery. Shouts of disagreements emanated from the nearby card games, laughter exuded along the many balconies as friends mingled, and grunts discharged from those who began their morning workouts.
In front of the cafeteria sat long tables and benches. A shout of his name issued from one of the nearby tables pulled his attention. The old shelbek appeared harmless, save for his daggerlike beak that created the front of his reptilian-like face and for the number of scars across his ancient body. His hardened shell acted like front and back plate armor, protecting his core from any unforeseen threat. He wasn’t a friend, nor did Seb trust the man. He was just a fellow passenger along the same journey who provided stable conversation and was neutral enough to not arouse suspicion from any of the local gangs.
“Good morning, Seb. Sleep well?” the reptilian man asked, smiling.
“Hey, Rabeero,” Seb said, sitting opposite him. “No, as a matter of fact, I think one of the guards has it out for me.”
“What makes you think that?”
“They bunked me with a foobidiga.”
With surprising reflexes, Rabeero brought his hand over his nostrils. “Well, I think this conversation might be over. I don’t feel like losing my lunch.”
“Thanks for the love, you selfish old bastard,” Seb said, chuckling. “Don’t sweat it. I hit the showers this morning.”
Rabeero slowly lowered his hand before extending his unnaturally long neck toward Seb. He took a quick whiff before resuming his previous posture. “I don’t smell anything, but that doesn’t mean another species can’t. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky is far from it. I’m just trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to survive until we make it to wherever the fuck we’re going.”
“You could always ask to be put in the fridge. It might be better than being bunked with a foobidiga.”
Rabeero’s chuckles quickly got under Seb’s skin. “Yeah, laugh it up, but I am not going to volunteer getting put in the fridge.” Seb shuddered at the thought. “The nightmares are worse. At least I could get over the smell.”
“That’s true, but it might be longer than you think.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“No reason.”
Seb slammed his fist on the table, catching glances from passersby. “If you have information about where we’re going, you better tell me. I’ve only got one more week till release.”
“Ano.”
“What?”
“We’re going to Ano.”
Seb looked around to make sure no one was close enough to hear before leaning in as he whispered, “Where did you hear that?”
“I’ve got my sources.”
“Sources, my ass.” Seb scoffed. “Why the fuck would they be sending us to a level nine supermax?”
“No idea,” Rabeero said, shrugging. “But I trust my source.”
“You need to get better sources, then. I was told we were en route to a staging facility where they were going to disperse all twenty-five hundred of us.”
“That’s what everyone was told, but I can assure you it’s inaccurate. You should already know it is. We left Marcum Penitentiary weeks ago. The closest staging facility to Marcus is Erriani Station. The cosmic lane between the two points is only a few weeks tops, and unless they’ve been dropping out of FTL while I’ve been asleep, we haven’t stopped since we left.”
Seb slumped his head into his hands as he listened to the shelbek’s words. He counted back the days, searching for any combination of problems with their jump or separate route between Marcum and Erriani that would have accounted for the delay. He found none. It also corroborated with the increased ratio of guards to prisoners in each cell block, along with their heavily armed presence.
“I can tell by that look in your eyes you’re realizing I’m telling the truth,” Rabeero said with a smug smile.
“Well, there’s one way to find out for sure,” Seb replied, pushing himself up from the bench. He turned and stomped his way to the three nearest guards, ignoring Rabeero’s shouting protest. The guards stopped in the middle of their laughter when one of them noticed Seb’s approach.
“Hey, badge,” Seb began, “where is it that we’re going?”
The three guards all shook their heads before the middle one spoke up. “Not this shit again. You all have been told multiple times that we’re going to a staging facility.”
“Huh,” Seb said, tapping his finger on his chin. “Funny you should say that. Unless it’s the chemicals you pump in our water or the fumes from the air dryer, I could have sworn Erriani Station was the closest staging facility next to Marcum, but if that was our destination, we would have been there twice by now.”
The guards turned and looked at each other before the one in the middle took a step forward, pulling out their stun baton and pointing it at Seb. “If I were you, inmate, I’d keep that curious mind of yours from wandering too far. You might just lose it along the way.”
“Point taken,” Seb said, raising his hands. “You all have yourselves a nice day.” As quickly as he came, Seb turned around and made his way back over to the bench across from Rabeero.
“It looks like they didn’t like your questions,” Rabeero said.
“Yeah, they got super defensive, and I didn’t even bring up anything about Ano.”
Rabeero groaned as he stood from the bench, grabbing his food tray as he leaned in. “No, they really didn’t like your questions.” As the shelbek pulled away, Seb could hear the marching boots approaching him from behind.
“Inmate 5313, stand up and place your hands behind your back!” a commanding, feminine voice shouted from behind.
Seb turned to look over his shoulder. Five guards surrounded his back, each with their stun batons drawn. He hung his head, rolling his thumbs together as he thought about his next move. He couldn’t help but laugh at the situation he’d put himself in. You’re so fucking stupid sometimes. You just had to open your big fucking mouth. All you had was one more week.
“Inmate 5313, stand up and place your hands behind your back!” the guard repeated.
Seb’s mind shifted away from its own self-destruction. One more week? They were never going to let me leave this wretched place. He let out a sigh. Let’s just see where this goes. In one fluid motion, Seb pushed himself up from the bench and placed his hands behind his back. He felt the tight clasp of the electronic restraints before being yanked around by his arm. All eyes were on him while the guards marched him out of the dense common area.
They paraded their way back up to the fifth level before stopping at a sealed, mechanical door. Seb watched as one guard waved through the window before the door shot up into the ceiling, allowing everyone to pass through. He had never been on this part of the ship before but was familiar with prison barge layouts.
Three civilians manned the guard station, giving them full control over the security measures for their block. Dozens of holograms hovered across a ten-foot wall, showing the multiple cameras they had positioned throughout the block. The badges sitting in the guard station were unarmored, resting nonchalantly as they sipped on their beverages of choice.
As they continued down the corridor, they passed several metal doors with thin windows that Seb assumed were interrogation rooms, thanks to their wall-mounted tables and stools. The leading guard’s WICI activated the next few doors, opening only when the guard hovered her wrist-mounted device in front of a lock, shunting the metal doors open. A weighted feeling crept into Seb’s gut as the temperature shifted in the next corridor, causing his breath to become visible.
“Where are you taking me?” Seb demanded.
“Eyes forward!” the guard behind him shouted before shoving him in the back.
“All I asked is where we’re going, and you’re going to throw me into the fridge?” Several of the guards’ laughter all but confirmed his eventual destination. “Fuck this,” he muttered before kicking the guard in front of him in the back of his leg. The guard let out a cry, dropping to his knee, only to be silenced by Seb’s follow-up kick to the side of his helmet, the sounds of cracking plastic echoing throughout the hall interior.
He knew what was coming next when he heard the electric charge of the batons. The fight was always going to be a losing battle, but if he was going to be thrown in the fridge, he wasn’t going to do it lying down. He’d been hit with the batons before, but never three at a time. His entire body locked up, preventing him from being able to move. It was like every atom in his body was being shaken as hard and as fast as possible, yet he couldn’t move. His heart raced with each shock, covering him in a cold sweat instantaneously.
With a crashing thud, there was nothing he could do. A poignant smell of his burning flesh filled his nose, and he convulsed. His body was already numb from the pain, only jerking with each kick and shock from the guards’ frustrations. It wasn’t until the kicks to his face started that his mind slipped into a daze, until his assaulters grew tired.
With a stream of blood dripping from his swollen face, his sight faded in and out while the guards dragged him into the cryo room. Hundreds of pill-shaped capsules lined the walls, with the frozen faces of lifeless prisoners overlooking them through their transparent windows. In the middle of the room awaited the technician standing over an open capsule, expecting him like a specter of the afterlife, ready to take him to the dark places of his mind that welcomed him.
To the technician’s displeasure, the guards threw Seb into the capsule. They removed the electronic binders from his wrists before pulling his arms down to his side. The technician secured his arms, legs, and head to the back of the pod with the fabric restraints, a necessary requirement once they suspended him with the others.
With three sequential clicks, the top of the capsule locked in place. Seb’s anger gave way to acceptance, causing a bloody grin to form over his face. It’s funny how quickly life changes. One more week left until your freedom, and now you’re looking at a few more years minimum. Oh well.
The sound of mechanical grinding preceded the gravitational shift of him being pulled up into the air. The cool, pressurized air being filtered throughout the capsule made it difficult to see the head-sized window, but he could see the white shade of the technician standing at the console.
This is it, Seb thought to himself. Next comes the gas. Inmate 5313 closed his eyes and did something he had never done before. He prayed to all the various gods and goddesses throughout the known galaxy for happy dreams.
His prayers were answered with a single gunshot.
2 Descent
It wasn’t loud from inside the capsule, but the unexpected thud rang along the surface of the pod while the echo bounced inside the interior of the room. Seb opened his eyes, slipped his head out of the forehead restraint, and leaned to the viewport inside his soon-to-be coffin. Unfortunately, the window was already fogging over, making it difficult for him to see what had happened. As he looked through the opening, the red clash of blood against the full-white suit of the technician was similar to a drop of whipping cream on a strawberry gelatin.
Seb couldn’t get a good-enough look to recognize the man standing at the center console, but the tight officer’s uniform was apparent enough. The technician’s killer made motions across the room’s control panel before the retrieval system activated. The robotic arm slid down the length of the room before stopping in front of a group of pods along the opposite wall from Seb’s. In systematic motions, it reached out, clasped on to one specific pod, and pulled it into the middle before the system slid back to the control area. The arm set its bounty in the middle of the room, retreating into the ceiling with its task complete.
Seb sneezed when the sickly sweet smell of the inhalation anesthetic itched the inside of his nose. He could feel his heartbeat thumping in his neck, and it soon felt like thousands of ants were crawling all over his body. He groaned before shaking inside the pod violently, trying to keep himself awake.
When he looked back out the viewport, the officer was helping the prisoner out of the capsule. He couldn’t tell who the prisoner was, but standing next to the officer, it was clear that the inmate was much larger. His massive frame towered over his rescuer. With the captive stable enough, the two men turned and took off out of the cryo room, opposite of the way Seb entered.
What just happened? Seb wondered, slumping his head to the back of his pod. Whatever it was, he didn’t have time to worry about it now. Three sequential booms shook the foundation of the ship, slamming Seb’s head into the side of his container. The ship made its displeasure known, sending an internal groan throughout its central core.
“This day just keeps getting better and better.”
The emergency sirens blasted over the intercom. The two whooping squawks of the escape siren were intertwined with the general alarm, bringing about an audible chaos that made Seb appreciate he was still in the pod. He started in a coughing fit, pulling at his restraints as he fought to counter the weakness that flooded his body with every breath.
Another two explosions followed, plummeting the entire ship into darkness. The hum of the ship’s internal systems faded to the groan of a steel beast floating endlessly in the void. Seb felt weightlessness, telling a loss of the ship’s artificial gravity. There was no longer a high-pitched whistle of the gas being released into his chamber. There was only the grinding drone of the wounded craft.
If there was any moment to press his luck, this was it. Seb pulled at the bindings holding his arms and legs. Thanks to the cheap, powered locking mechanism, he jerked free after a few strenuous tugs. His mind spun as his increased breathing brought him closer to his eternal sleep.
“No!” Seb shouted. “You’re not dying here.” He pulled his knees up to his chest, shimmied down to the bottom of the capsule, and pressed with his legs as hard as he could. The frantic breaths of air between his teeth whistled as the stress caused the pain to flair from his previous injuries. However, his efforts were met with a grating howl as the fulcrum point of the pod’s door raised upward. Seb pressed until the opening was just wide enough for him to slip through. Once he was out, he didn’t smile or laugh; his hand only gripped tight to the edge of his pod.
The complete darkness he found himself in was almost worse than being locked inside the chamber. At least in there I knew where I was, he thought. He took a few minutes to breathe, letting the fog in his mind clear with the room’s clean air.
With his mind clear, Seb guessed his positioning relative to the floor. He remembered being in the third row of pods some thirty feet in the air, and while the fall wasn’t likely to kill him, his bruised body had already suffered enough trauma. He reached his legs down underneath his pod, swiping side to side until he felt the top of the case below him. He envisioned pushing downward, grasping each pod as if he were scrambling down a wide pole.
With the inside of his feet firmly gripped on the pod below him, Seb let go and began sliding himself down. He heard a familiar, faint click off into the distance that slowly rose in volume. Recognizing the tick of the emergency lights coming on, he desperately pressed himself downward, hoping to speed his descent. When his feet didn’t hit a pod beneath him, panic set in as he plummeted farther.
Despair washed over him as a terrible thought entered his mind. What if he had gotten confused about his direction and was actually ascending into the room? Perhaps he was floating fifty feet toward the ceiling. When the red emergency light filled the room and the gravity restored, Seb’s feet touched the ground. He stumbled backward, letting out a hearty laugh, which helped ease his nerves.
He winced as the laughter radiated pain around his back and chest. Seb wiped his hand across his face, covering his fingers in blood. As he stood there and the remnants of the inhalation anesthetic wore off, Seb realized just how much pain he was in. His face and head throbbed, his chest and back ached, and he was certain he was covered in bruises. He surveyed the room, focusing on the two doors leading in opposite directions. On the wall opposite the one he entered was a metal box with a red plus sign on it.
Seb shuffled across the room, passing the dead technician on the way. His eyes were wide open, as if shocked from beyond the grave at the revelation of his killer. Seb ignored the corpse for now, his pain consuming his attention.
When he reached the metal container, he unclasped the door, revealing a black, folded kit secured with a strap and two metal rings. Inmate 5313 turned, pressed his back to the wall, and slumped to the ground. He pulled at the strap and unrolled the kit, revealing two stim pens secured behind plastic. The bottom of the medical kit was stamped with GLB’s mascot, which comprised of a cheerfully animated face drawn on one of their stim pens giving the phrase ‘Why try one when you need them all?’
Seb read aloud the fine print under the colorful image. “Glaxo-Liili-Bayer’s proprietary blend of stimulants and analgesic are shelf stable and do not counteract either’s efficacy in vivo. For use by humans ONLY! By utilizing our product, you agree to GLB’s terms and conditions.”
He couldn’t help but chuckle at the last line, knowing full well the list of side effects these stims likely caused. It didn’t matter too much, though. His options were limited thanks to the empty pouches lined before him.
