Star Runners 2: Revelation Protocol (8 page)

Sunlight warmed his face; the surf rustled against the sand only to retreat into the depths. Another wave, larger this time, crashed into the beach and sent hundreds of little rivers into small canyons between tanned bodies and colorful towels. The cold water tickled his shriveled toes. A child laughed, running from the waves before being scooped up by his mommy. A feeling of warmth enveloped him like a blanket fresh out of the dryer, as if he had found an eternal source of joy and would be able to keep it to himself. His thoughts drifted.

Someone was with him. To his right. They were close, projecting a feeling of security somehow. The sense of warmth radiated, pulsating toward him. 

He couldn't turn his head. His hands wouldn't move. He reached out with his fingers, but felt nothing. Out of the corner of his eye, the person moved. It was a woman with dark hair. The wind tussled her curls as they fell onto her bare shoulders. She leaned in close.

"You have to wake up." Kadyn's voice.

"Kadyn, how did we get here? Where are we?"

"It doesn't matter, sweet one. You must wake up now."

"Kadyn!"

The beach pulled away from him, like someone ripped the image from his mind. He reached for it, but only touched air.

"Josh." A different voice. "Josh. Wake up."

He pried open his eyes. The rocky surface of the cave spread out above him. Nausea invaded his gut as the smell of human waste surrounded him. Cool air drifted into the area. A man coughed nearby. To his right, a familiar face, cracked and weathered, stared down at him.

"Delmar," Josh breathed, his throat dry. "I was dreaming."

"I know. About Kadyn, no doubt."

Josh leaned forward, sipping water from a pouch. "Yes."

"Who is Kadyn?"

He took another drink, longer this time. The image from his dream, while fiction, had burned into his mind. It should have been a true memory, something from his past, but it wasn’t. As he had countless times since Dax Rodon and his men captured him leaving him to rot on this asteroid, he wished he had told her how he felt. 

"A friend," he said, wiping his mouth.

"Must be some friend with a dream like that.” Delmar smiled. “Is she beautiful?"

He thought of Kadyn and her chocolate curls, dark eyes. "Yes."

"Hmm."

Josh laughed. "Easy. She's my friend."

"Sorry,” he said with a sigh. “It has been a long time."

Josh rubbed his face, the palm of his hand slithering with sweat. He studied Delmar’s dark, weathered skin, imagining the man’s life as a smuggler before the Tyral Pirates took him. "How long have you been with these pirates?"

Delmar gazed away, expression fleeing his face. "Too long."

He started to press, wanted to know more about his companion, but the questions died at his lips. The Tyral Pirates had moved them to this cave yesterday, the third in as many days. They had unloaded six freighters in that time, stripped eight total Legion vessels including two Tridents, and seen dozens of prisoners released into the vacuum of space. Every day he woke in this place, he believed this would be the day he, too, would receive what Dax Rodon called “leave” and be released into the void of space. Some of the workforce disappeared with the released prisoners, declared to be unfit for work. The guards shot others for trying to escape, refusing to work, or simply looking in the wrong direction. 

Josh had taken his blows, too. The second day, a guard smacked him across the side of the head with the butt of a laser rifle. He hadn't seen it coming. Apparently, the guard simply walked by and hit him, or at least that's the story Josh was told much later when woke in another cave. Delmar had saved him, offering to carry him from the site after work detail. The tender lump growing just above his ear reminded him of the guard’s cruelty, and of Delmar’s kindness.

When they weren't stripping spacecraft or escorting prisoners to their deaths, the pirates dropped them in caverns deep into the asteroid to mine for minerals and precious metals. The workdays stretched so long Josh didn't know if he had ended up in hell itself. Delmar, his worn hands covered in calluses, always extended to offer assistance. Josh would be dead by now if not for Delmar. He would tell his friend as much if it seemed such things mattered to him. No, Josh thought, Delmar attacked work like he punched a clock every day. It was nothing to him. It was like he had a magical cloak to shield him from the horrors of this place.

"How do you do it?" he asked.

Delmar stared at him, a quizzical look on his face. "How do you mean?"

"Day in and day out. You keep trying, keep moving ahead and concentrating on the task at hand. How?"

His friend's face warmed. "It is easy. I know we will be delivered to safety. Some day. You will see."

Josh snorted. "I don't even know where we are. Even if I could-"

Suddenly aware he spoke loudly, Josh glanced over his shoulder at the cave entrance. Leaning forward and lowering his voice, he continued, "Even if I could get to a ship, I don't even know where we are."

Delmar grinned. "We are in the Amade Cluster, Quadrant Eight. This is the secondary base of the pirates, although I do not know the name of this specific planetary body."

Josh blinked. "How do you know that?"

A horn sounded, and footsteps stormed down the hall. The other prisoners rustled. When the guards came every other day, it meant more work, food or new additions to the workforce. Since Josh couldn't stomach the thought of eating more green sludge, he hoped for more workers, but felt a tinge of guilt for wishing such a thing on any newcomers.

The gate opened, and one Tyral Pirate stood at the entrance, his muscular arms resting on his hips. "Get in there!"

The guard forced six new spacers inside the room and closed the gate behind him. The men, dressed in an assortment of ragged flight suits, collapsed in an undignified heap of flesh in the center of the cell. Their tattered clothes grasped at their bodies by threads. Fresh cuts and bruises covered their faces and bodies. These men had been in a fight.

Although their flight suits were torn and ripped, there seemed to be a uniform aspect to the newcomers as if they belonged together. However, Josh knew the uniforms were not Legion types he had ever seen before. Josh looked closer, saw no insignias or ranks. Still, the men seemed to be together and not just a random selection of six spacers. They glanced around the cave, their eyes frantically moving. Their skin glistened with sweat. Fear hovered around the newcomers, except for one man in the center.

Josh looked at him. With his bulky broad shoulders, the center newcomer glared with ice blue eyes at each prisoner in the room. A thick, bushy red beard grew out from his face like a fire frozen in time. He locked eyes with Josh, held the stare for a heartbeat, and moved on, silently challenging each man in the room to make a move toward him.

None did.

The man saw to the other newcomers, kneeling to provide a kind word or offer a pouch of water. After the ferocity in his face a moment before, the leader of the newcomers showed compassion toward his men. He checked their wounds, touched their shoulders as he spoke. 

"Who are they?" Josh whispered.

"Barracudas probably," Delmar said with a shrug, "but if they are, they've been the property of our hosts for quite some time."

"Barracudas?"

He lowered his gaze. "A smuggling group. They operate throughout Quadrant Eight. Have done so for years. They work on Legion planets and anywhere else they can operate."

Josh frowned. “So they’re like the Tyral Pirates?”

“Not exactly.” Delmar leaned back against the rock wall. “These Barracudas operate in materials and objects, never in the slave trade. And they do it well.”

Josh rested on his elbows. "Interesting."

*****

Three hours into the second day of pounding rocks, his shoulders burned. Josh wiped the sweat from his brow with his tattered shirt, the same garment given to him when he arrived. He risked a glance around the cavern. Men focused downward on mining the boulders, covering the rocky surface like a beehive. Delmar worked near Josh as always. Although older, the man never seemed to waver. He lifted the pulverized rock fragments onto the hovering flat that moved away when filled.

The Barracudas adapted to the extreme working conditions, filing into the work detail like experienced laborers. At the beginning of their second workday, the Tyral Pirate guards removed one Barracuda from the mining crew along with several others. Josh wondered where they had moved the new group, but Delmar advised against asking. Josh hoped the guards took them to strip another freighter, but thought it was a false hope.

The massive leader of the Barracudas often worked near Josh. The bald man looked feral as he tore into the rocks each day. It was as if the boulders themselves had wronged him. The man worked in silence except for grunting.

But today the man worked beside Josh. They spent the first hours in grim silence. The man lifted the pick ax over his head and smashed it into the rocks. He used the ax to move around the rubble he had created before lifting the tool again. The force of his work shook the ground. Josh glanced at his own arms, comparing them to the beast of a man near him. Having played football, Josh always thought his arms were toned, something that made him proud. Working next to this man made him feel small, weak.

As he gazed out into the dense asteroid field surrounding their prison, the reality of his situation pressed on him. With the amount of guards constantly standing watch, there would be no escape in his future. There would be no stealing a vessel. If he did, Dax Rodon would pursue and hunt him down before he could plot a curve to take him to Legion space. Or they would just destroy him. He would never get out of here alive.

He sighed and lifted his pick ax. He plunged it into the rocks, ignoring the fact he did not make the ground shake like the leader of the smugglers.

A force pushed him from behind, thrusting his head backward.

"What the hell?" Josh cried out, spinning around.

The hulking man squared off with him, his sweaty biceps bulging as if they would rip through the skin. His eyes widened, blazing like blue fire.

"Watch where you swing that thing, little man," the Barracuda leader said with a booming voice. Even with the translator working in his ear, the man's voice growled, rising above the chaotic noise of the workers.

Other workers turned in their direction. 

"I didn't mean to do anything," Josh said, gripping the handle on his ax.

The man shoved Josh hard to the chest, pushing him backward. His heel caught a boulder, and Josh tumbled backward into the pile of rocks. The back of his head hit a stone. His vision wavered and darkened. Dimly, the outline of his attacker loomed over him like a gothic statue; the ax cocked back like a weapon.

Delmar burst into his line of sight and grabbed the back of the ax poised to smash into Josh's skull. The speech garbled in Josh's ears, but Delmar yelled for the man to stop.

"They will kill us all if you do this!" Delmar snapped, his voice gruff.

The smuggler lowered the ax, shrugged off Delmar and slowly turned back to his work.

Delmar knelt on one knee and offered to help Josh rise. He felt like he was on a carousel when he stood, the world spinning around. His legs wobbled, and he pressed a hand to the back of his head. A fierce pain flashed from the back of his skull. Delmar glanced around and led Josh back to his mining site in the center of the common area near the hangar floor.

"Come now,” Delmar said. “No guards have noticed. Try to get back to work."

"I didn't do anything," Josh said, wincing as Delmar thrust the ax back in his hand. "I didn't even touch that guy."

"Quiet," Delmar said. "He is their leader, trying to exert his influence. You are fine now. Finish the day."

His arms sapped of strength and his head still spinning from the collision with the rock; Josh spent the rest of the day attempting to look as busy as possible. The guards usually targeted the resting prisoners, so Josh focused on keeping his head low.

The hours dragged, the endless labor blurring one site to another until the entire universe seemed comprised of these strange brown and gray rocks. He would obliterate a rock, load it on the drone cart, watched it fly away and continue the process again. His lungs burned, and his mouth felt like cotton. Just when he thought the workday would end, the guards moved them to another site. With artificial fluorescent lights illuminating the cave like a highway construction site, he had no sense of how long they had been working.

After what could have been two days or more, the guards halted the work. Several prisoners collapsed on the rocks where they worked, sometimes in mid-swing. Josh glanced around, his mouth hanging open like a caught fish as he gasped for air. The workers who remained standing stared into space, their minds wrecked and any sense of humanity sapped. The guards marched the prisoners who could still walk back to the common cell like a line of cattle. The prisoners on the ground reached for them as they passed. A worker in front of Josh reached down to help an older worker. A guard smacked the helper in the back of the head, and he tumbled next to the gray-haired prisoner. Josh glanced at the man as he passed, saw the bloodshot eyes surrounded by wrinkled skin.