Star Runners: Revelation Protocol

Chapter 4

4

The crash woke Josh. His joints popped as he folded his sore legs and propped himself against the damp wall. His teeth chattered and he clenched his jaw to stop, straining to decipher the chaotic sounds echoing through the dark corridors outside his cell. Men shouted in unfamiliar languages, the voices approaching.

"What's that?"

"They are coming," Delmar answered, his voice grim and rough like rocks rubbing together inside a burlap sack.

In the weeks since Josh’s arrival, the area had been relatively quiet other than the silent guard bringing the same, inedible slop of slithering mucus. Several times, he wondered if the pirates had buried them inside this underground cavern because it was an inexpensive way to kill their prisoners. But the green-slop-carrying pirate continued to bring the food, so all he could do was wait. Before this moment, there had been nothing like this sound of yelling men and machinery.

The gate to his cell shuddered and a portion slid back into the rock. The guard barked in another language. An order apparently, but he had no way to know for sure. Josh hesitated before moving across the cell to the opening, his muscles aching. He poked his head through as a turtle would inch out of its shell, straining to see in the darkness. The smell of human waste and garbage hit him.

A metal object smashed into his forehead.

“Zaka tawa!”

Calloused hands coarse as sand paper clamped down on his throat. He gasped as his lungs ignited like a match on kerosene. His vision darkened. A metal object forced its way onto his skull, sharp fingers pressing into his neck and head. The incisive edges split his skin, and blood trickled down his forehead and cheeks. Salty blood tingled on his lips and tongue. Another cylindrical object was thrust into his ear. He cried out, but his voice was lost in a sea of shrieks.

"When I tell you to rise," Rodon’s familiar voice cooed in his bleeding ear, "you will do so."

Josh nodded, not really understanding why or if anyone could see his response in the darkness. The mechanical fingers pressed into his head, and the grip tightened. Ignoring the discomfort, he risked a glance at his surroundings. Other prisoners lined the dim corridor. The crowded walkway stretched wide enough for two men to stand beside each other, but the ceiling was only about six feet high. Mysterious metal objects engulfed the heads of each prisoner like demented spiders. The rusted gear clamped over their skulls bumped into the rocks as they stood in unison. Guards in loose black fabric roamed between them, keeping their rifles aimed low.

This was it. They would be killed now. Delmar was right. The pirates had no need for them, so the executions would begin. He hoped they would be quick. He prayed for his parents to never know his true fate. But Kadyn, oh, how he wished he had said something during Austin’s games—during any of the times he stared at her without speaking. He would never know if any part of her felt the same way.

The sound escaped the tunnel like a vacuum.

"You have been equipped with a translator to assist with today's duties," Rodon’s words sizzled from a buzzing speaker attached to the device on his head. "You should all be able to understand me. Raise your hand if you understand."

A dozen yards to his front, a prisoner kept his hands down. A nearby guard kicked the his leg.

"Raise your hand!" the guard yelled.

When the prisoner did not comply, the guard pressed the rifle to his head and pulled the trigger. The laser blast filled the tunnel with red lightning. The doomed man tumbled to the ground, twitched twice, and fell still.

"Now, the rest of you should know the device you wear is also for security. At my command, the ingenious instrument will close on your head like a bear trap, effectively ending your service to me. My name is Dax Rodon. You are my prisoners. Time to get to work."

Josh's blood boiled, but he chomped on his bottom lip to calm down. He thought of all the Star Runners who had died because of this man, the innocent civilians killed. In his months on Tarton’s Junction, the Tyral Pirates had always been lurking in the shadows. Officers whispered about the vague pirate threat, experienced Star Runners carried worried expressions, and mechanics grumbled as they repaired Tridents damaged during hit-and-run raids. Rodon had been leading them, growing bolder with each passing month.

And now Josh was his prisoner.

"Today,” Rodon continued, “you will empty an acquired freighter and then strip it. Half of you will be sold off or killed at the end of the day. The best workers will stay. Guards! Move our workers into the hangar!”

With an agonized murmur, the mass of humanity lunged forward. Josh felt the hot breath from the man behind him on his neck. The guards packed them in like cattle. The metal spider on his head made him feel like he wore five football helmets. His body bounced and swayed along the uneven surface of the tunnel's floor.

"Stay close to me!" Delmar snapped from in front of him.

Having only shared whispers with Delmar in the darkness, Josh looked at his only companion for the first time. Delmar’s head was shaved beneath the spider, and his robes, which might have been white once, were now covered in gray sludge. His tall, lanky body moved like a skeleton.

"We work together and we survive this," he hissed.

The group snaked through the passage lit only by crude flash lights. The guards beat stragglers with the butts of their rifles. Those unfortunate enough to trip and fall received the worst treatment. Trying to block out the sounds of suffering, he kept his eyes on the back of Delmar's head.

The tunnel opened to a colossal cavern illuminated by florescent lights hanging from the rocky ceiling. A metal floor littered with spacecraft and scrap metal stretched for hundreds of yards. At least a dozen stolen Trident fighters had been parked in no discernible pattern, each craft a desecrated memorial to a fallen Star Runner. He glanced to his left, then to his right.

The cavern opened on both sides to reveal an asteroid-filled star field. A massive hunk of rock spun slowly. Beyond, asteroids stretched into infinity.

So the Tyral Pirates hid in an asteroid field? No nearby planet or moon of any kind was visible, just the blackness of deep space. At least he was certain the pirates hadn’t taken him to another planet. However, how far had they transported him? Was he on the other side of the galaxy? Would he ever see his family or friends again? Or Kadyn?

"Move it!" a guard yelled, smacking Josh in the back of the head.

A battered merchant freighter filled the majority of the makeshift hangar. Laser blasts had scorched the hull. Jagged cracks covered the freighter's hull, the metal blackened and burnt. There was a hole in the ship near the bridge.

That must be how they took the freighter, Josh thought. Just like they had with the Saber.

Tyral Pirates swarmed around the freighter. The base of the landing platform was covered in steel grates. Three pirates dumped tools down into the second level. Josh saw no control tower or crew quarters. If he could send a distress signal somehow, perhaps he could limit his stay…

"These passengers should be sorted," Rodon's voice hissed in his ear-piece. "All able-bodied men and women will be sent with Tatos on the left of the hangar. The sick, elderly, or otherwise useless will follow Simex on the right and be led to the airlock for release."

Josh looked to his right. The airlock door was the size of a two-car garage. Rodon planned to force the innocent passengers in there to die. He had to do something.

"You are brave," Delmar said without turning around, "but ultimately foolish. Do you really think you could take them all?"

He surveyed the hangar. At least twenty heavily armed guards stood in multiple locations throughout the hangar, all focused on the line of prisoners.

He leaned closer to Delmar. "We have to do something."

"We are,” Delmar said. “We’re surviving. One day we will stand, but today is not that day."

The freighter’s cargo bay doors slid open. The first two passengers rushed out with steel crow bars c****d back in attack position, ready for battle. They screamed, unleashing a wavering battle cry of civilians who had never been in a fight. A flurry of laser blasts ended the rebellion before it even began, the guards laughing as they murdered the passengers. Josh winced. He wanted to turn away, but remained focused on the grisly scene. The two slain passengers fell to the hangar floor with a dozen candle-flame-sized fires burning on their bodies. The closest guard walked over to the men and fired a shot into each of their heads.

The following passengers had no fight in them; their feet dragged on the floor as guards marched them out. Their eyes focused on the ground, and some sobbed as they walked. A child gripped their mother's hand, only to be ripped away. Both the mother and the child screamed. Josh looked away, unable to watch any longer.

Some prisoners helped sort the freighter's passengers into their appropriate lines. Josh and Delmar were too far back in the line and were ordered to wait. Their task would be stripping the freighter for salvage once the passengers and crew had been removed.

The passengers shouted for their families as the guards separated them. Josh’s eyes fell on Rodon. He strolled past the passengers like a used car salesman checking out his product. Rodon’s dark hair tumbled onto his shoulders, which were clad in fine black silk. The passengers he deemed worthy disappeared into a tunnel on the far side of the hangar, probably bound for cells like the one Josh had just left. Rodon smacked his hands together and rubbed them as if he had just finished counting his money. He spun around and marched to a door across from Josh’s position.

“Time to eat!” he yelled, gesturing for two minions to follow him.

As Rodon passed through the door, Josh glimpsed a room full of work stations and an operational hologram.

A control room.

“We need to get in there,” Josh said, rubbing his nose to cover his mouth.

“Quiet,” Delmar whispered. “Do you have a death wish?”

The guards ordered the remaining unfortunate passengers into the airlock. When the final passenger passed through, the door began sliding shut on the room full of people. A woman sitting on the floor cradling her baby looked at Josh. He held her gaze, not wanting to look away, as if he could stop the door from closing by sheer willpower. Their eyes locked until metal hit metal, blocking their connection in a chorus of hissing gasses.

Once the airlock closed, a guard yanked down on a red lever. Josh held his breath, glancing around the asteroid hangar in search of a resolution. He sighed. A brief yelp followed by a whooshing sound, and it was over.