Read Shadowplay: Book One of the Starcrown Chronicles Page 10

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  Bobby was surprised at how easy it had been for him to slip away. He knew that Wheems had seen him go, but slaves didn’t snitch on other slaves. Besides, with the mess Ian had created he would be back long before they were finished cleaning up.

  The forest was very dense. He had only gone a few meters when the transports were completely hidden from view. A little farther and the sound of everybody working behind him was swallowed up by the dense foliage as well. He noticed that it was dimmer here. The thick canopy overhead cut down on the amount of light that reached the ground. The rain was lighter too, coming down more like a gentle mist.

  Bobby only had a general idea of the direction to go in so he kept his eyes focused ahead, hoping that he could find the generator house by dead reckoning. After going what he guessed was eighty to a hundred meters he paused. The generator was supposed to be around here somewhere, but he didn’t see it. He turned in a slow circle, scanning for some sign of the blockhouse. Then something caught his eye. It was ... lighter over that way. He started forward slowly. Then he saw it. The generator house lay just ahead in a small clearing. Both the fence and the building had been painted green to blend with the forest, which was why he almost missed it.

  He closed the distance quickly and stopped just short of the fence. The fence was not supposed to have an alarm, but they weren’t sure. There were no sensors anywhere that he could see, but a good security system wouldn’t necessarily be visible.

  Screwing up his nerve, Bobby jumped up and pulled himself over the top of the fence. No alarm sounded. He let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

  There was no door on this side of the building so he flattened himself against the outer wall and peered around the corner. The entrance was there. The fence on that side had a gate, closed and secured, with a gravel path leading from it into the trees. He knew that the path led to a Japanese garden in the rear of Rabine’s mansion that his wife had made him put in several years ago. He could just see the far end of the path and the open space beyond which must be the back of the garden. No one was in sight.

  He crept around the corner and moved to the shed’s door. He grabbed the handle and pulled. Nothing happened. His heart started to race. There wasn’t supposed to be a lock on the door! Taking the lever in both hands he tugged and pressed down hard. After a moment the lever gave and the door swung open. Bobby darted inside and closed the door behind him.

  He took a few seconds to let his eyes adjust to the dimness inside the generator shed. There were wide, narrow windows running along the tops of the walls, but the diffused light they admitted amounted to little more than a murky twilight. In a few moments he could see a little better and he crept toward the big machine that occupied most of the building’s space, thrumming quietly to itself. It was just like Ian had described it. He moved left, looking for the junction box that should be there. It was. He found the correct cable, grabbed the coupling ring and twisted. The ring stubbornly refused to turn. Wiping his palms on his damp pant legs he grabbed the ring again and twisted with all of his strength. Slowly the ring gave and began to unscrew. With the coupling ring removed it was a simple matter to wiggle the connector loose.

  Being careful not to touch the bare connector, Bobby cautiously lowered the cable and brought the metal tip into contact with the generator housing. There was a brief spark and the sound from the generator changed. It became higher pitched and began to grow louder—an overload was building up.

  Bobby was excited as the crept back to the door. He was getting almost as much of a thrill from this as he used to from catching a monster wave with his board. He had just opened the door a crack when he heard voices nearby and froze. He didn’t sense any urgency in the voices so he didn’t think that they knew he was there. Pulling the door closed again as quietly as he could he moved to one of the windows and grabbed the bottom edge of the frame. Chinning himself up he peered cautiously out.

  Standing at the end of the gravel path he saw Rabine’s wife and chauffeur. As he watched they embraced in a passionate kiss while the chauffeur’s hands groped her in ways that an employee should never touch the boss’s wife. Apparently Rabine was not the only one to dally on the side.

  Under other circumstances Bobby would have found the situation funny. But he needed to get out of there. Behind him the generator was emitting an increasingly more and more urgent whine. Unfortunately, Rabine’s wife and the chauffeur didn’t look like they were going to be leaving any time soon.

  Lowering himself from the window Bobby considered his options. Once the generator failed all hell was going to break loose. Power in the mansion and all across the grounds would go out. Even though the back-up generator would kick in half a minute later, someone was bound to come to check out the system. He didn’t like to think about what they would do to him if they found him here. Of course he could stop the overload, there was still time. But then all of their planning would have been for nothing.

  He weighed the different options and made what was probably the toughest decision of his life. This was about more than just him. If the others could do their parts there was a chance they could still escape. That was what mattered. If he were caught he would make Rabine believe that he had acted alone—a reckless slave taking advantage of an opportunity to run. He would make it seem that he had simply stumbled across the generator shed and tried to throw the entire plantation into a state of confusion so that he could escape.

  It sounded believable. Of course, it also meant that he would be “punished”. Bobby had seen numerous whippings since he had been on the plantation. Rabine liked to administer such punishments personally. He seemed to enjoy inflicting pain. His favorite tool was a braided, twelve foot leather whip. A number of slaves and even a few guards bore ugly scars on their bodies where the lash had cut deeply into their flesh. One man that Rabine had been particularly angry with had actually died from shock and blood loss.

  The thrill he had felt earlier had suddenly gone sour.

  Just then the generator built to a high pitched crescendo. There was a brief electrical sizzle and a brilliant flash. Smoke started billowing from the unit as the turbines quickly whined down into silence.