Waterloo guild series bo.., p.25
Waterloo (Guild Series Book 3), page 25
A shove to his shoulder brought Rinde’s attention back to his immediate area. Workers were shuffling as fast as they could for the doors they exited at the end of a shift. Some few were able to trot, while others could barely walk and were being supported as they tried to escape. Rinde grabbed one person near him who looked close to toppling over, wrapping an arm around the woman’s back to help her hurry for the exit doors.
Rawls was standing near the doors, his eyes darting around to examine every person approaching. Rinde saw the man’s focus settle on him just as loud sirens began to blare high above. Rawls hurried over, helping to shepherd the woman from the furnace. “We don’t have much time,” the man shouted over the sirens.
“For what?” Rinde asked, but his voice was drowned out as they passed onto the mesh platform where the workers met the train at the end of their shifts. The sirens were louder here, and a voice was speaking over the intercom. He tried to make out the words, but the speakers were so old and of such poor quality that the voice was no more than a constant squawking noise.
A train car was waiting near the platform. The doors were open, and a man stood nearby waving people in. Rinde and Rawls propelled the woman forward, entering the crowded car among the last of the escaping workers. When the doors closed, the sirens were muffled and he could hear dozens of voices talking over each other.
“What’s going on?” he asked Rawls, leaning close to speak into the man’s ear.
“You’re being rescued. Well, everyone in the factory is being rescued.” Rawls had a large grin on his face, the rebreather removed from his mouth and tossed to the floor.
Rinde followed suit with his apparatus. New filters had never been provided, so he’d often wondered why he bothered with it at all. “Who’s rescuing us? How?”
“The Guild has been working on this for weeks,” Rawls said with a shrug. “I can’t give you all the details. You’ll have to ask someone higher in the organization for that. All I can say is that we’ve been getting ourselves arrested on charges we knew would likely land us here, guaranteeing the organization we needed to make this happen.”
“But what’s the plan? How are we escaping?”
Rawls shrugged again, causing Rinde to grind his teeth in frustration. “I’m not high enough in the pecking order to know things like that. I was told what time it would happen, and instructed to be sure you made it out no matter what else happened.”
The train continued on it’s journey, taking longer than it usually did when the workers were dropped off at the large platform tor return to their rooms. For the first time, Rinde cursed the lack of windows in the car. He wanted nothing more at that moment than to see where they were heading, and find out what may be waiting for them there.
Twenty minutes after leaving the furnaces, the wheels of the train car squealed as it slowed. When the doors finally opened, the occupants were greeted by the site of a gray and rainy landscape. The ground was covered in concrete for hundreds of meters, leading to a wall in the distance that was topped by twisted wires. Rinde felt sure there would be thousands of sharp points covering that wire, discouraging any attempts to scale the wall.
The man who had ushered workers into the car stepped out onto the tarmac, waving for everyone to follow. Rawls approached him and spoke quietly for a few seconds, and then set about helping to form the workers into a rough line away from the maglev tracks. Their train car sped away, leaving a few dozen people standing in the rain staring at empty concrete.
“This is an escape plan?” Rinde whispered. He looked around, seeing only the imposing wall in one direction and the smoking stacks of the factory in another. Soon, another train car screeched to a stop. The doors opened, and twenty or thirty people exited the car. The newcomers were dressed in blue jumpsuits, sleeves and torsos covered in grease stains. They looked at Rinde’s group apprehensively, eyeing the neoprene suits and soot covered faces. Five minutes later another train car arrived, disgorging more factory workers.
Rawls pushed through the growing crowd, everyone standing close enough to rub shoulders. “When our transport arrives, you’re the first one aboard. Orders from the top.”
“Transport?” Rinde looked around again. “What kind of transport?” Rawls smirked and pointed up. Rinde cast his eyes to the cloudy sky, and saw a growing brightness behind the clouds. Seconds later, they billowed as a battered ship pushed through them to land on the bare concrete. Landing struts extended mere moments before the ship settled on the ground.
The engines maintained a dull roar as two large doors on the nose of the ship swiveled open to expose a large cargo bay that was nearly empty. A wide ramp extended, and Rinde felt himself being pushed forward before it even touched the concrete. Rawls hustled him onto the ship, with the other workers streaming behind them to find safety aboard the freighter.
A man was waiting at the top of the ramp. He was young, with short blonde hair and blue eyes that seemed to take in everything around him. He smiled and raised a hand as Rinde stopped a few feet away. “Minister Brighton, it’s a pleasure to see you. President Meyers is going to be very happy to hear that you made it out.”
“I’m not a minister any longer,” Rinde said, returning the handshake. “What ship is this, please?”
“Oh! Sorry about that, I got ahead of myself in the excitement of being part of a prison break. I’m Captain Erik Frost, and this is the Vagabond. Let me show you to the quarters I’ve had prepared for you, and you can freshen up. Once we get these people loaded up, we’ll be launching for Luna.”
Rawls waved as Rinde looked back, seeing what appeared to be half a hundred people crowding into the cargo bay. Behind them, he could see yet another train car arriving to deliver more factory workers. “This can’t be everyone confined here, captain. The factory has to have thousands of forced laborers.”
“One thousand four hundred and nineteen according to the documents I’ve seen. Don’t worry, sir, we’ll get as many of them as we can. Two more freighters are beginning descent soon, and there are others queued up behind them.” The young captain’s jaw rippled as he the muscles clenched. “We’re prepared for any attempt to resist our rescues.”
Three armored soldiers squeezed by at that moment, headed for the cargo bay doors. Rinde turned to watch them, fascinated by the light gray armor with red accents. He thought the design over their chests was an arm drawing back a bow, but he couldn’t be certain from the quick glimpse.
“We have thirty militia soldiers, ten on each of the first three ships,” Captain Frost told him as they stopped before a cabin door. “More than enough to hold off any guards that try to prevent our rescues.” With a few taps on the screen beside it, the door slid open to reveal a spotless room with a bed, storage closet, and small washroom. “President Meyers provided a suit for you, sir. It’s in the closet. If you need anything, you can contact the control room on your display. I left some water and a protein bar on the desk here. Galley is on the other side of the ship if you need more, and we’ll be handing out food and drink to everyone in the cargo bay as soon as we’re off the ground.”
Rinde stepped inside the room, marveling at how comfortable it felt. It was half the size of the small room he had spent the last several days living in, but felt like a palace in comparison. “Thank you, Captain Frost.”
“Just call me Erik,” the young man said with a friendly smile. “We’ll be travelling at low speeds since the people in the bay can’t strap in, so we should be at Luna in about three hours.”
The door closed, leaving Rinde alone. The fact of his escape from the factory was starting to become reality, and he raised his hands to wipe away tears. Feeling the rough gloves reminded him of the uncomfortable neoprene and he pushed the suit off his body with disgust. He could feel a vibration under his feet as he stepped into the small washroom and pressed a button to start the shower. It gave him joy to know the freighter was leaving the factory, even if it meant he was leaving Earth.
Clean and refreshed, he ate the protein bar with relish. It tasted wonderful in comparison to the tasteless compressed brown nutrient bars he was forced to eat when he couldn’t make the boring bread in his room’s tiny kitchen. Drinking the cool water, he opened the cabin’s small closet and looked at the suit provided. It was black, with a crisp white linen shirt. Classic colors and cut, which he appreciated. The material was soft between his fingers, heavy enough to provide warmth in the cooler environment of a space ship and the Luna domes.
He didn’t want to wrinkle the suit, so he left it in the closet and tied a towel around his waist before lying on the soft bunk. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the first true relaxation he’d been able to experience in weeks. He could feel sleep trying to pull him down, but the thought of the dozens of workers crammed into the cargo bay made him open his eyes and sit up. It was true he was no longer a minister, or part of the Coalition government, but he still felt a strong desire to care for the people.
It was quick work to dress in the suit, and he took a moment to examine his reflection in the mirrored surface of the powered down display. He was thinner than he had been, from the stress of trying to figure out what was going on with his government and then his time working in the furnaces. At the same time, he looked stronger. In body and in spirit. He had suffered hardship, and through that experience he felt closer to the people who toiled in similar labors every day on Earth to feed themselves and their families.
Finding his way back to the cargo bay was easier than expected. Rinde turned the wrong way out of his cabin, but he found the corridor to be an oval that led him to his destination via a longer route. He passed by a reactor room and the galley, paused a moment near the door marked as the control center, and then entered the cargo bay on the opposite side of the chamber from where he had left it.
The workers were huddled together in groups, tending to cluster with those they were acquainted with from shifts within the factory. Rinde could understand that need for the comfort of something familiar in strange surroundings. A few heads turned to look as he entered the bay, noticing his suit and turning away. Rawls sauntered over with a sly grin. “Don’t you look good all fancied up? A little familiar, too. I guess it’s true that you were high in the government before you ended up in the factory.”
“I was, until I questioned the prime minister’s way of doing things. Now I’m no more or less than anyone else in this cargo bay.” Rinde saw a woman in a teal jumpsuit weaving through the groups, carrying a box from which she pulled protein bars and pouches of water. “It’s good to see these people being treated well. Do you know what is waiting for us on Luna?”
“Sanctuary,” Rawls said simply. “A place where we won’t be forced to work in harsh conditions just because we say something the government doesn’t like.”
“Hm.” Rinde hoped the Guild would prove to be more enlightened than the Coalition had become. He wouldn’t give up on setting things on a better path on Earth, but he knew there would be a lot of work ahead before that could happen.
As soon as the freighter was safely settled on the Luna docking pad, Rinde was one of the first to enter Aldrin through the airlocks. It would take half an hour to get all the rescued factory workers off the ship, and he could see impatience in Captain Frost’s eyes. A desire to get back to the planet and scoop more people to take them to safety.
President Meyers was waiting in the docking facility with a relieved expression, hurrying forward with a hand outstretched. “Rinde! You don’t know how good it is to see your face again.”
“No more than it is to see yours, my friend. I thank you with all my heart for your help in releasing us from that horrible place.”
“If I’d known such a thing as the factory existed, I wouldn’t have waited as long as I did.” Meyers examined him, one hand tightly clenched on his shoulder. “How do you feel, Rinde? Are you strong enough to help me start a revolution?”
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my friends and family, who have been so supportive of my venture into authorship. On days that I’m feeling down, my friends help to keep me focused on what’s important – telling the story.
I’d also like to thank Christopher Doll again for the awesome cover art on this series. He is a joy to work with, and his creations are beautiful to look at.
http://www.christopher-doll.com/
About The Author
Tim has been a dreamer since he was a small boy, and is finally putting all his wild imaginings onto paper. During the day, he is an IT support technician for a nationwide bank. At night, he bangs away on his keyboard and often obsesses over the proper word to express an idea or feeling.
He can be found online at www.timrangnow.com, where you can sign up for a monthly newsletter to get all the latest updates on current projects, exclusive access to short stories set in the Guild universe, and advance peeks at future books.
Guild Series
Vagabond
Indomitable
Waterloo
Resolute coming August 2020
Tim Rangnow, Waterloo (Guild Series Book 3)
