The morning sun crept over the horizon and chased the night creatures back into their holes. The black of night was folded out with a blanket of light from the dim, yellow sun. The stars winked out. The morning colors of Mars sparkled in the light and painted the icy landscape different shades of red, from bright crimson to dark cherry.
The sun was not yet high enough to extinguish the shadow in the pit, which looked dark and foreboding, telling of another day of pain and possible death.
The prisoners shuffled wearily out of the barracks and into the cold morning air moving slowly toward the assembly area.
Since the death of Rodde most of the gang leaders had grown sullen and angry toward Ben, but they kept their distance knowing that he was like a poison bringing death to anyone who harmed him. This caused the gangs to lose their power and many of the gang members had broken away from the gangs and started following Ben wherever he went. They became friendly with him and even protective in their actions. They were glad to keep the food pellets for themselves.
"It's only been two weeks," said Ben, "and you're already starting to look pale and jaded." He and Keegan were walking toward the formation. Samsung was leading, and Em was following not far behind.
"The work is hard, the food is lacking," replied Keegan, "and I haven't been lying around in a hospital bed eating good food and playing fanny pat with the nurse. And what's this about eating in the officers' mess two nights ago?"
Ben grimaced. "I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about you. And the point is, you're body is becoming emaciated. If we don't get you out of here, you're not going to make it to the end of next month."
"Well I'm all for that. There's just one problem—there seems to be a wall in the way, and on the other side of it there’s a thousand miles of desert with toral lurking behind the trees waiting to eat escaping prisoners."
Ben grabbed Keegan as he started to stumble. He pulled him upright and looked into his face. "I've convinced a couple of the guards that the Galaef is a prisoner in this prison. Right now they're working on a plan to get him out. And when they do, this prison is going to fall like a stick hut on the windy plains of Azmoria."
"How are they going to get him out? There are six Federation guards outside the only entrance to his small prison, and two on the inside, not to mention the two G15 destroyers."
"Like I said, they're working on it. And also, I'm working on my own escape plan, and I'm going to try to make it happen within the next couple of days."
"By God," declared Keegan, "you name the day and I'll be ready."
Ben wanted to name the day, but the plan hadn't been fully worked out. He knew he couldn't get the Galaef out, so he would leave that to Sharpie and Curt. Right now his plan was for himself, Keegan, Samsung, and Em to escape. He couldn't take anymore prisoners, and he knew that Viella wasn't in danger of starvation. So his plan excluded her for the moment.
Ben had considered using Em's ability with locks. But how could he be sure of it? The man was a walking paradox. No. Ben decided to work it out with Sharpie and Roqford. And so far the details of his plan seemed sketchy, but nevertheless plausible. During the day, Rodde would send them, one by one, to the prison hospital, and the doctor would have to be in on it, because he would keep the four of them there until nightfall. They would leave by the backdoor where Sharpie would be waiting for them, then she would get them into the guard tube with her keys and sneak them to the guard’s barracks.
The timing of the guards would have to be worked out so they could make their way from the side of the guard's barracks to the back of the officers dining hall without being detected. And that’s where Roqford came into the picture. He would keep a mental lookout for anyone in the vicinity. If he detected someone he would warn Ben. Then from there they could sneak aboard the supply transport.
"Well?" asked Keegan.
"We're waiting for Sharpie to contact the pilot of the supply transport. She thinks he can be bribed, but he won't be here until tomorrow."
They came to a stop as Keegan stepped into the circle next to Samsung's. Ben put his mouth close to Keegan's ear. "Making it out of the compound and into the supply transport is only half the problem. We have to be able to tell the pilot beforehand where he's going to drop us off. Right now Newusa is not good. So I'm thinking about the Mountain Nation. Samsung is certain that Everette will let us join his clan."
Em stepped into his circle. His towering six feet four inch figure stood out in the red morning sunlight like a weight lifter in a competition spotlight. The hard labor hadn't tired him in the least. In fact he was looking healthier. His muscles were looking stronger and his face had taken on some color. This man was a mystery.
Keegan put his hand on Ben's arm. "I have contacts in the underground, and it won't be a problem for them to hide us in Newusa."
"Yeah, but where do we go until you contact them. All the patrollers in Newusa are going to be on the lookout for us."
As Keegan was mulling it over, Og and the guard with the recorder stepped in front of the formation getting ready for role call. After a moment, Keegan started to say something, but Ben dug him in the ribs with his elbow at the same time nodding his head toward the giant at the front of the formation. Keegan quickly closed his mouth, and they both remained silent.
Ben noticed that this morning it was Lieutenant Lasitor who was in charge of escorting the prisoners to the pit.
The role caller looked at the board. "There will be no changes today," he said. He looked at his board and started calling out names.
Just then Viella stepped onto her number between Ben and Em. "One of the women prisoners became violently ill," she said looking at Ben. "I had to stay to . . ."She never finished her statement.
"You're not only late, you're talking too!" boomed Og. His deep voice thundered upon the air, shaking the ground, and causing everyone to look his way. He grabbed his whip with both hands as if he were going to wring the life out of it and looked toward the back of the formation, at Viella. His forearm muscles became tense, and then rigid.
Ben turned to look at Viella. There was a puzzled expression on her face as though she didn't know what was happening.
Og started forward, taking giant steps, and the prisoners immediately started to clear a path for him. One unlucky soul wasn’t fast enough. Og hit him so hard with the back of his hand, it sounded like his neck was broken. Ben could hear the snapping of bones just before the man was catapulted in the air. He landed four or five paces away and lie still. No cold morning breath could be seen curling away from his mouth or nostrils.
Og kept coming, and the prisoners moved faster to get out of his path.
Like the parting of the Red Sea, thought Ben.
Suddenly the five of them were standing alone.
Viella looked stunned by the sudden occurrence of events.
"This is absurd," said Ben. Then he yelled at Og, “She was fifteen seconds late—what the hell’s the problem.
"You will obey the rules!" boomed the giant.
He strode twelve more steps, which brought him towering above the five prisoners. He raised his whip higher than normal, which would give him added force when bringing it down on Viella, but as it rushed toward her, Ben turned his back to the giant. He stepped in and pushed Viella away committing himself to receive the blow. With this action he had no time to change his mind, and he acted so quickly he had no time to think of the consequences. He could hear the whistle of the whip, which he had heard so many times before. His hand started gripping the air with a subconscious desire to be holding a sword. He wanted to run it through this giant’s gut. The whip came down hard causing an impact, which almost knocked him off his feet. He staggered under the force, but managed to keep his balance. He could feel the blood seeping into his shirt.
Ben started to turn toward the giant when he felt the giant’s hand close around his neck. Looking up he could see the giant was furious with uncontrollable anger. The last time he ha
d seen that look on the giant, he had killed one of the prisoners. The next thing Ben knew the giant picked him off the pad and flung him aside like a rag doll. He flew through the air and landed ten paces from the roll-taker on the hard, cold plastic of the assembly area.
The giant turned and raised his whip. There was no doubt that he would beat Viella until she lay dead on the ground. Ben tried to get up, but pain racked his body, and he fell back.
When Og raised his whip again Samsung picked up a hard, cold rock from the frozen ground and with a mighty heave he hurled it at the giant. It hit Og in the forehead and caused a trickle of blood to run down his nose. He looked confused for a moment, but then he shook his head and the angry expression once again encompassed his face. He aimed his whip at Samsung, but it missed as Samsung easily did a jump and roll. Samsung came in fast unleashing a furious flying kick to the giant's solar plexus, but it had no effect. The giant was quick as he snatched Samsung off the ground and flung him into the soft dirt above the edge of the abyss. Samsung landed on hands and knees and was already scrambling up the side when Keegan rushed the giant.
He aimed a blow for the giant’s groin assuming this was the most vulnerable anatomical location. But, with unbelievable speed for a big man, the giant turned sideways and lashed out with a huge foot kicking Keegan with such tremendous force that he went flying over the edge of the pit and down the embankment to the brink of death. Keegan’s hands started weekly clawing in the dirt to keep him from sliding into the abyss, but to no avail. His injuries had sapped his strength, and he slid slowly out of sight.
Samsung, seeing Keegan's plight, scrambled down the side of the pit and disappeared below the rim.
Ben started berating himself. He shouldn’t have stepped in between Viella and the giant. Viella would have received a blow. The giant would have been satisfied, and he would have returned to the front of the assembly. But now he was so angry he was going to kill Viella, and there was nothing anybody could do to stop him.
With great anguish Ben pushed himself to a sitting position. He ignored the pain and forced himself to stand. He watched as the giant raised the whip once again, high in the air. This time the blow would be Viella’s. She turned to the right to receive the impact on her back thereby lessoning the chance of injury to vital organs. Her turning brought her face to chest with Em.
Ben was about to run at the giant, this time planning to kick at his knee, but then something happened which kept him frozen in his stance. At that time, for the first time, Ben saw a strange look in Em’s eyes—a glassy sheen—almost a glow. Viella had told Ben about it, but it was difficult to imagine. Now, looking at Em, he understood, but it was hard to believe. A shiver ran down Ben’s spine, and the thought of Em being a God was becoming more reasonable—no mortal man’s eyes can take on that look.
The giant’s whip came down.
With one hand Em began pushing Viella to the side, and when the whip was half way through its arc Em repositioned himself quickly into a weight lifters stance.
With Em moving Viella out of the path of the descending whip, it turned out that she received only a partial force of the blow, but it was so vicious it knocked her off her feet. She went flying onto the frosty ground with a look of pain on her face. There was already a six inch strip of Blood visible and soaking through her prison issue blouse.
Before the giant could raise the whip again, Em grabbed the giant’s wrist and pulled the giant forward and down, bending him in the middle. By driving his other hand into the giant’s gut he was able to lift him off the ground.
Ben would never forget the look of shock and horror on the giant’s face.
Em crouched lower in his stance, and then with a forceful upward heave like a shot-put the giant went flying into the air. His flight arced up and over the edge of the pit, and he disappeared screaming into the gaping hole of the open pit mine.
Everybody—the prisoners, the guards, the Federation guards, even the warden as he stood upon the prison wall in his position of authority, were silent as they watched in disbelief.
A loud crash resounded from the bottom of the pit and echoed off the walls, sending forth that eerie feeling one gets when the reaper has taken a life.
Then again the silence. But it lasted only a few seconds. A loud cheer erupted from the prisoners. There was a clamorous clapping of hands and loud shouts of hooray, then they calmed down a bit and started talking excitedly. They didn't know who this strange prisoner was or where he came from or why he never talked, and they didn't care. In this one act he had vanquished extreme misery from their lives.
The warden finally broke through his mental cloud of amazement and started shouting for the prisoners to get back into formation. But they paid him no attention. They had become almost rebellious. It was as if they were thinking the giant was gone, and there was no one to beat them into submission. They continued their unruly behavior.
The guard who did the roll calling dropped his recorder board, drew his gun, and pointed it at Em. He pushed the button on the handle and started to squeeze the trigger.
Ben knew the guard had just changed his phasor from stun to kill. It’s a death sentence, thought Ben. And then he moved with the speed and ferocity of a chaission lion. The red phasor bolt would cut Em in half. And with this thought in mind Ben sprinted toward the guard. He was no longer aware of the warden's screams or the prisoner's excited chattering or Viella as she stood up. All his thoughts were concentrated on the guard who was bearing down on Em.
The guard saw movement out of the corner of his eye, but he was a fraction of a second too late as he turned toward Ben and started to fire. With his right forearm Ben forced the gun hand and the gun to the guard’s left as the man pulled the trigger. The red phasor bolt tore through two of the prisoners standing on the other side of the numbered area killing them instantly.
Ben formed the knuckles of his left hand into a spear and punched the guard in the throat nearly shattering his Adams apple.
The guard stepped back in pain and dropped his phasor allowing Ben to move forward and throw a punch that caught the guard in the face. He went down with a bloody mouth. He fell prone to the ground in agony, squirming about and gasping for air.
Realizing it didn’t matter anymore and knowing that he was a dead man, Ben bent over and picked up the fallen guard’s phasor. He swung around and fired a bolt at the warden, but the shot missed and hit a guard standing next to him.
Ben had never seen the warden move so fast as he jumped behind a transparent barrier. He was angry, and he started to stutter as he tried to yell his next order. After a few seconds it finally came out, “Turn on the phasors. Kill ‘em all. Kill ‘em all.” He kept yelling until spittle started to run down his chin.
"Into the pit," yelled Ben. "Run."
The guards in the tower were fast on the button. The phasor turrets Started rapid firing random bolts into the prison yard.
It was chaos and pandemonium. The prisoners shoved and pushed, and started tripping over each other as they ran to get out of the yard. A few of the prisoners made it over the edge, but a number of them went down when the bolts tore through them. And the body count started increasing.
Ben grabbed Viella by the hand and together, with Em following, they leaped over the side of the pit and slid down the soft gravel. They dug their toes in to keep from sliding into the dark abyss.
At least another sixty of the prisoners made it over the edge. But the phasors’ bright searing beams continued to shoot forth in blinding random patterns burning holes in everything they hit and creating black charred holes in the ground. Little rivulets flowed from melting rocks. The guard who tried to shoot Em was still lying on the ground and was cut to pieces. Phasor bolts tore into the dead prisoner’s corpses mangling them beyond recognition.
*