As Adrian spoke to Colonel Hopet, Jake sensed sadness in his father’s voice. “Colonel Hopet, make sure your medical team is ready. You’re going to have a lot of casualties.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the colonel.
Adrian finally looked at Celeste. “Celeste, have you and Colonel Jantear finalized your preparations for the rescue attempt?”
“Yes, General,” Celeste said. “Colonel Jantear and I, along with fifty other troops, will take an assault vehicle to Chast as soon as the attack on the base begins. My father will be so distracted with the attack, that he won’t even suspect a rescue attempt.”
Adrian nodded his head. He was about to speak again, when he remembered something he had forgotten to ask Celeste. “Oh, Celeste, any word from Nichelle and her people on the whereabouts of Skip and his crew?”
Sadness seemed to cover Celeste’s face. “No, General. Talead has been crawling with Gnol soldiers for the past two months. There is no way Nichelle can get to the temple.”
Adrian frowned at Celeste’s response and sighed. “Very well, we can only assume that he has either been captured or …” Adrian paused and swallowed. Jake could tell that he was trying to stay strong. He then looked back up at Celeste. “Just inform her to keep trying to find a safe route to that temple.”
Celeste nodded and said, “I will. She and her people have returned from Talead and are at the base now.”
Adrian nodded, cleared his throat, and focused his attention back to everyone in the group. “Okay, if there are no further questions, everyone is dismissed.”
As everyone in the room began to leave, Jake continued to sit in his chair. He leaned onto his thighs and cupped his head in his hands. The mention of Skip brought a lot of emotions to the surface that he didn’t want anyone to see, especially Celeste. He missed his best friend and prayed every night that he was safe.
Jake began to feel the tears flow from his eyes. He rubbed his eyes and was about to stand up when he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder. He turned his teary eyes in the direction of the person who had touched him.
There stood Celeste with concern in her eyes. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Suddenly, Jake felt ashamed and embarrassed. He knew how powerful Celeste was and did not want to seem weak around her. He cleared his throat and said, “Uh, yeah, I’m just tired that’s all … uh … I’ve got to go. I’ve got some pilots still to train.”
Jake tried to walk away, but Celeste grabbed his arm and, with her strength, held him in place. He turned around and met her eyes. “You are not getting away from me that easy,” she said. “We need to talk.”
“About what?” asked Jake as he glanced outside the door. There, in the doorway, stood Jantear. He didn’t look happy and seemed to be waiting impatiently for Celeste.
Celeste grabbed Jake’s face and turned it gently to face hers. “Meet me in my quarters in two hours. I have to go now because I have some final plans I need to go over with Colonel Jantear.” She smiled at Jake, leaned in, and gently kissed him on the cheek.
Jake watched as Celeste left the room. Now, he was more confused than ever. What was that all about, and what did Celeste want to talk about? Whatever the answers were, there was no way he was going to avoid Celeste this time.
**********
As the scorching sun began to fade away beyond the horizon of the Island of Vtasloget, Skip began to feel some relief from the heat. He had been in the sun ever since he arrived at Zikf. So each day, when the day began to turn to night, he was grateful. Moreover, since his arrival, he had already learned many things about where he was and how that would help him with his escape plans. For instance, he learned that the mining camp of Zikf was located on the Island of Vtasloget, which was the Tilicah word for plentiful.
The Terrestrians called this the Island of Plentiful because it was loaded with precious ores such as gold, silver, iron, and, of course, the priceless metal ore – Omutx; the metal that was nearly indestructible – except when barraged with plasma fire, bombs, or missiles, of course. It provided exceptionally strong armor, nonetheless, and it was used in the construction of buildings, vehicles, computers, etc. You name it; Omutx was more than likely in it. That was why the Gnols had the mining camp. It was their primary metal resource center for the Gnol civilization upon Terrest.
Skip learned that inhibitors were also made out of Omutx. And whenever he had a small amount of downtime, he would devise plans of how he could get enough Omutx to create enough inhibitors for his plan to work. But with Captain Belzar around twenty-four-seven, there was no way he could collect any Omutx at all. In fact, the one time he tried to collect a small amount near a dig site and place it into his pocket, Tiny – as Skip affectionately called Captain Belzar – had caught him. As a result, Skip had suffered a severe beating at the hands of Commander Schaal.
He was still feeling the effects. His left eye was slightly swollen, and one of his ribs was still broken, which made it even more difficult for his task at hand.
“Next,” he called out as the slave next in line stepped forward. An armed Gnol shoved the slave a little closer to Skip’s desk. The slave hit the desk and nearly knocked Skip’s computer into his lap. He caught the computer, looked up, and glared at the guard who had shoved the slave.
He then looked at her. “Ariaun—”
Captain Belzar slapped Skip in the back of the head.
“Uh … I mean … identification number, please.”
He made eye contact with Ariauna. She seemed to plead with him with her eyes. For weeks, he had kept an eye out for her, but had never caught a glimpse of her; not since he had seen her on Commander Schaal’s view screen. He knew, however, that he would eventually see her with this new assignment Schaal had given him.
For the past two weeks, Skip had been sitting at the same desk in the middle of the mining camp, and entering data into a new slave database. Apparently, Lord Chast had issued a decree to all slave commanders on Terrest to catalog each slave by number, name, and date of birth. After each slave was catalogued, he or she would then be implanted with a computer chip into the back of his or her neck. This would enable the computer in each camp to keep track of each slave more efficiently, and most importantly, enable the Gnols to control their minds better. The slaves would also receive a bar code on the back of their hands to make it easier to identify them by a laser scan.
Skip had often wondered how it was the Gnols were able to control the minds of thousands of slaves at once, especially since most of the Gnols weren’t that advanced in their telepathic abilities. He learned, before the new decree from Lord Chast, the Gnol military trained special agents called Enforcers. These Enforcers were superior in their telepathic and telekinetic abilities and sent out to all of the slave camps on Terrest.
Once an Enforcer arrived at a slave camp, he or she was given ten slaves to control, which was the maximum an Enforcer could control in a mind lock. Needless to say, with the number of slaves the Gnols had, and growing in number each day, they needed a new system.
So, within the month, Lord Chast wanted every slave camp on Terrest to have installed a new computer system that controlled each slave in the camp with just four Enforcers. The Enforcers would work in shifts with only one Enforcer controlling the entire camp at one time. These Enforcers were to be connected to a new mainframe computer within the central administration building of each camp. From this central location, the Enforcer would send signals from his or her brain to the computer. The computer would then transmit the wireless signal to the chips implanted in each slave. Consequently, the Enforcer would be able to control and monitor each slave’s movements and effort.
If a slave was lacking or the link to his or her chip was broken, the computer would then be able to identify the slave immediately, based upon its new database. From that point, the guards would easily find the slave and repair the chip or, worse, torture and kill the slave.
“A-1209.”
Captain Belzar s
lapped Skip in the back of the head again. He snapped out of his trance and looked back up at Ariauna. “Um … number again, please?”
“A-1209.”
Skip typed in the number and made eye contact with her again. He knew that, at the moment, the slaves were not under the mind control of their Enforcers because they needed their own minds to relay the information to the five hundred secretaries Schaal had lined up in the camp’s courtyard. As Skip looked at Ariauna, he desperately wanted to reach out and rescue her. She looked horrible and she had lost the weight she had put back on since her last enslavement. She reminded Skip of a Jew in a World War II Nazi concentration camp.
“Name?” he asked.
“You know my name, Skip.”
Her response caused Skip to stiffen. He knew that any kind of response out of the ordinary, especially a slave referring to a secretary by name, would bring dire consequences. The guard on Ariauna’s right raised the butt of his rifle and landed it directly onto the back of her neck. She yelled out in pain and fell to the ground.
Skip launched himself from his seat. But before he shot himself over the desk and into the guard, he remembered Belzar was directly behind him. He sat back down as Ariauna groggily stood up.
Skip continued as he tried to hide his anger and emotion in his voice. “Name?”
Skip could not look at her while she glared at him. “Ariauna Tomwon.”
“Date of birth?” Skip asked.
“Fiseimh 16, 474, or in English …” she said sarcastically “… January 16, 474, Terrest time.”
The guard, sensing her disrespect again, raised his rifle, but Belzar raised his hand. “That is enough, Private. Secretary Hendricks has all the information we need from her. Escort this slave to the implant station.”
“Yes, sir,” replied the private. The guard grabbed Ariauna by the arm and dragged her to a chair about ten feet away from where Skip was sitting. As the guard dragged her, she never lost eye contact with him. He wanted to look away because her look wasn’t a look of despair – as she had before – but now a look of anger. He knew that she probably thought he had given in, as some of the other human secretaries had, for better treatment from the Gnols. Skip desperately wanted to tell her that wasn’t the case at all.
He watched as the guard strapped her into the chair. The Gnol medic approached her from behind and placed the implant gun directly under the base of her skull. Skip closed his eyes as he heard the swoosh of the implant gun. He opened his eyes and watched as the guard pushed her in the direction of another Gnol who stood nearby.
Skip shook his head. He knew, within a few weeks, Ariauna would never again have the freewill to control her own mind. The combination of the computer and implant would keep her under the control of the Gnols twenty-four hours a day.
Skip felt the strong hand of Captain Belzar on his shoulder. Belzar squeezed, causing Skip to lower in his chair. “Hurry it up, Hendricks. We still have more slaves to process,” Belzar said.
“Yes, Tiny,” Skip said.
Belzar squeezed harder. Skip clenched his teeth in pain. “I told you … never call me that,” said Belzar. “You will show more respect to your shadow.”
“Sorry, sir,” replied Skip as he gritted his teeth and looked up at the slave next in line. “Next,” he said.
The slave next in line stepped forward. He looked to be in his fifties. Skip wondered if he had recently been enslaved because the man looked exceedingly well fit for his age. Rather than being malnourished as most slaves were, this slave had his shirt off, revealing his toned muscles and many scars, obviously from beatings, which was why Skip wondered how long he had been a slave.
“Identification number?”
The man looked at him with his crystal blue eyes. He reached up and ran his hand over the white stubble of his shaven head. He smiled at Skip. Skip didn’t return the smile. Instead, he gave him a curious look as to why the man didn’t answer.
The same guard who had hit Ariauna nudged the man with his rifle and said, “You better answer him now! And do not even think about shooting off that mouth of yours or you will get another beating.”
The man looked at the guard, gave him a smile and, in an accent that sounded remarkably familiar to Skip, said, “Now, don’t go gettin’ your panties in a bunch, Creed. You know what happened the last time you tried to beat me. You don’t want none of this again,” the slave said as he hit his chest with his fist.
The guard seemed to back away at the man’s response.
Skip was surprised. Never had he heard a slave refer to a Gnol by name before. And why did the guard seem intimidated by him?
Suddenly, Skip heard another slave standing about ten slaves back yell out, “You tell him, boss!”
Skip looked at him. Another guard stepped next to the slave and sideswiped him with his fist. He fell unconscious to the ground.
The slave with the familiar accent yelled out to the guard who had hit his admirer. “C’mon now, Tolpez. What’cha have to go n’ do that fir? There was no harm done.”
Tolpez rapidly approached the mouthy slave. “Do not ever call me by my name.” Tolpez shoved his rifle into the slave’s chest. “You had better answer the secretary, now.”
The slave held his hands up and backed away as he gave Tolpez a cocky smile. He looked at Skip. “My identification number is C-5698.”
Skip typed the number into the computer and then asked, “Name?”
“Skyler Green.”
Skip was about to type in the name when he realized what the slave had said. He paused and looked up. “What was that name again?”
Skyler smiled at Skip and confidently leaned forward on the table. “The name is Skyler Green, born on July or in Tilicah – Feth 10, 1986 or 454 if I was born on Terrest, which I wasn’t. I was born and raised in Texas, U.S.A. on planet Earth,” he said, giving Captain Belzar a cocky grin.
As Skip entered the data, he heard Captain Belzar laugh. “Well, Green. It looks like, in a few weeks, you will not have any free time to make your little potions to trade to our guards.”
Skip looked back at Belzar and then back at the guards. Creed and Tolpez looked just as surprised.
“You fools,” Belzar said. “You are dumber than I thought you were if you did not know that the commander and I did not know about Green trading drugs to guards for special treatment. The commander is personally going to punish guards that have partaken in this heinous act of drug trading. But for now, take Green to the implant station.”
The two guards grabbed Skyler and dragged him to the station. All the while, Green kept his cocky smile on his face.
As Skip watched the medic implant the chip into Skyler’s head, a spark of hope ignited within him. Adrian had previously told Jake and Skip that Skyler had been cataloging plants and animals in the jungles of Terrest when the Gnols attacked. They never heard from him again, but now Skip knew. If they had any hope of escaping this hell, Skyler Green was the key.
**********
As Jake walked down the corridor of the base, he reached up and wiped the sweat that had begun to drip from his forehead. That didn’t help because his hands were clammy as well. He stopped at the door of Celeste’s quarters. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. He didn’t know why Celeste had this effect on him. He was extremely nervous about speaking to her.
After waiting a few moments and trying to gain the courage to let her know he was there, he reached up and pushed the button to signal his arrival.
“Come in,” Celeste said over the speaker.
Jake stepped forward into the door sensor. The door slid open, and there was Celeste, sitting at her computer station. Jake looked around before he walked in. The room was the same as all the other quarters. In one corner was a bed. Next to the bed was a computer station, and in another corner, separated by walls, was a bathroom. The rooms were modest, but they sufficed.
Celeste stopped working on her computer and turned around in her chair. Jake’s m
outh nearly dropped. She must have just finished showering because her hair was wet and she only had on a black robe. She smiled at Jake and crossed her left leg over her right, revealing a bare thigh. Jake tried not to look at her legs as she did so, but couldn’t resist.
She was so beautiful. More beautiful than any other woman he had ever seen before.
“Well,” she said. “You don’t have to stand there in the open doorway. Come in.”
Jake swallowed the lump that was beginning to form in his throat and stepped into the room. The door slid shut behind him. She motioned for him to have a seat on the bed directly across from her. Jake nodded, wiped his clammy hands on his pants, and walked to the bed. He sat down and forced a shy smile in Celeste’s direction.
Celeste laughed.
“Wh … what’s so funny?” Jake asked.
Celeste moved in a little closer toward Jake. He reacted by moving further back onto the bed. Celeste stood up and sat down extremely close to him on the bed. He didn’t know what to make of it. He was excited that she was that close to him, yet, he felt like a bumbling fool around her and thought for sure that she found that unattractive.
Celeste continued to smile at him and said, “Do you know why I wanted to talk to you tonight?”
Jake didn’t respond. He just shook his head.
“I want to know why you keep avoiding me.”
Jake cleared his throat and moved a little further away from Celeste. She moved too. “I … I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t been avoiding you,” he said.
Celeste rolled her eyes. “Come on, Jake. Every time I try to speak with you, you always have something to do. I want to know why.”
Worlds Without End: The Mission (Book 1) Page 30