Shadowplay: Book One of the Starcrown Chronicles

by Jon Gerrard

  Chapter Seven

  I was floating far out in space without a pressure suit—comfortable, warm, at peace. Stars, nebulae and galaxies surrounded me against a background of infinite blackness. It was magnificent. As I floated, I somehow knew that I was alone. There were no other people, no animals, not even microbes. In the entire universe I was the only thing that lived.

  I thought for a moment about what I would do with my universe. I decided to create something new. I stretched out my hand. There. A new star burned brightly. It was a good star, young and strong. But something was missing. Of course. A sun needs planets. I gave my new sun a planet. At first it was just a featureless ball. But I worked on it, changing it, molding it into something better. I worked very hard on my planet, pouring my soul into what I was creating. I formed vast oceans, built towering mountains capped with snow, carved channels for surging rivers that flowed into the seas, and enclosed my world in an atmosphere with stepped layers of cloud. I sat back to look at what I had created and I saw how beautiful it was.

  I wanted to share what I had done, to show someone the beauty I had created. But the empty universe was silent. There was no one to appreciate my work.

  Anger.

  Now I was the destroyer. I reached out again. This time I closed my hand around the world I had created and crushed it into rubble. I turned to a nearby star system and with a wave of my hand destroyed it too. I reached further. Now I destroyed an entire galaxy, scattering its stars like grains of sand in my wrath.

  But the universe remained silent. There was no one to witness the evil I did. I was the only one who could judge my actions.

  Good and evil were one.

  No. Good and evil did not exist in my universe. Planets don’t bleed. Stars don’t feel. Galaxies don’t know what happens to them.

  As quickly as it had come, my anger was gone. I looked down at my hands, hands which had created and destroyed, hands which could do good or evil.

  Again I looked out across the endless void and knew that I was alone. And in my solitude I understood that I could be neither good or evil here. That was the key. That was the answer I was looking for. Right and wrong did exist, but they were not defined by actions. Right and wrong could only exist—

  “Everybody up!”

  My dream evaporated as light blazed into my eyes. Lout was standing in the doorway to the slave quarters along with several of Rabine’s guards. We didn’t have a clock but I knew that it was still the middle of the night.

  “I said get up! Move it!” Lout yelled.

  As I rolled out of bed I realized that I had had that same dream of floating in an empty universe before. But this time was different. This time I seemed to be on the verge of some important discovery. But whatever the dream might mean to me, it was slipping away. Slaves have no time for dreams.

  We were all still half asleep as we groped around for our clothes. At least I had the satisfaction of seeing that Lout wasn’t doing much better. He looked like he had gotten dressed in the dark himself.

  “Mr. Rabine is having important guests,” one of the guards announced. “All lab slaves are to report to the processing shed to ready a shipment. House slaves will go to the mansion and prepare a meal for the guests. Christian is going to pick a work detail to load the shipment. After that the rest of you can go back to sleep.”

  While the lab crew and house slaves finished getting dressed, most of the regular field slaves waited to see who Lout would pick. I kept pulling on my clothes. I knew Lout wouldn’t pass up the chance to give me an extra work assignment.

  I was picked, of course, along with about a dozen others. Apparently this was going to be a big shipment.

  Momma Mary and the other house slaves were brought up to the mansion by one pair of guards while Doc Jacobs and the lab slaves were let into the processing center by another. The rest of us were lined up in the compound to wait.

  I had been standing there for several minutes fighting to keep my eyes open when I heard a low rumbling overhead. I looked up, expecting to see the visitor’s ship passing above us, but was surprised to find only empty sky. It took me a moment to realize that a lot of the stars were missing. When we had first stepped into the compound the sky had been full of stars. Now a large section of it was empty. As I watched I saw the empty patch slowly make its way across the sky. It took my sleep deprived brain a second to realize that the great, empty patch was the visitor’s ship.

  I followed the empty patch as it headed toward the landing field. When it came into the glow of the landing field lights the ship became visible as an indistinct blur hovering over the treetops. Then, as it moved directly within the circle of the searchlights being beamed up at it, I could see the outline of its hull more clearly and realized why the ship was so hard to see. The visitor’s ship was a sub.

  I didn’t know how I recognized it but I was certain. Combining an ablative coating to make them invisible against the blackness of space and stealth field generators to hide them from electronic scans, subs could virtually disappear, making them perfect for launching covert attacks against an enemy. But a sub here didn’t make any sense. Subs were military technology. They couldn’t be owned by the general public ... at least they couldn’t legally be owned outside of the military.

  A transport backed up to the lab door then and I had to reign in my curiosity for the moment as we began loading sacks of cocaine. We worked until we had exhausted Rabine’s reserve stockpile. The cargo bed of the truck was almost completely filled. In all the time I had been here I had never seen a shipment this big before.

  Once we were finished loading we were crowded into the back of the truck with the sacks and sent off to transfer everything to the visitor’s ship. By the time we arrived at Rabine’s landing field the sub had already landed. It was so large that it barely managed to fit in the landing field. Standing guard at the foot of the ship’s access ramp were two members of the crew. I noticed that each man was wearing a holstered blaster pistol. That was unusual. I had loaded shipments for Rabine before and none of the crews were ever armed. I didn’t think Rabine allowed it. They were friendly enough with Rabine’s guards however as we went about stacking packages on the handcarts we would use to transfer the shipment aboard.

  As I started up the ramp for the first time I got the strangest sense of déjà vu. It wasn’t until I was in the airlock and had gotten a whiff of the ship’s atmosphere that I realized why. There was no disguising that stench.

  Once inside the ship another crewman directed me to the main cargo bay. As soon as I turned into the bay I knew that I was correct. I had spent a week of my life imprisoned in this very compartment. This was the pirate ship of Mercurio Cross!

  Most of the others in the work detail had also been part of the group that was brought here by the pirate captain and his crew. We shot each other nervous looks as we stacked the packages of drugs in the hold. It was eerie being back.

  Other than the surprise revelation of who Rabine’s guest was, everything else went as usual. It took us quite a while to finish the transfer because the shipment was so large, but eventually we were done. We rode back to the compound in silence and were sent back to the slave quarters as soon as the head count was taken.

  The lab crew had already returned, but the house slaves were still up at the mansion. I caught Alex’s eye and called her and the rest of our group over to our usual table in the kitchen.

  “You’ll never guess whose ship that is,” I said.

  “Mercurio Cross,” Alex answered without hesitating. The others gave her a surprised look. “Some of the crew were walking around the compound earlier and I recognized a couple of the faces. But I didn’t think Cross was into selling drugs. That seems too much like work for him.”

  “I was thinking the same thing,” I said. “His style is more like just grabbing whatever he wants.”

  “I’d like to grab hol
d of that bastard,” Bobby said, glaring toward the mansion.

  “Get in line, son,” Lucky said. “I think we’d all like our pound of flesh. For me, I’ll take the pound closest to his black heart. And I’d be happy to cut it out myself—with a dull spoon.”

  Something Alex said had started me thinking. Everything about this middle of the night transaction was odd. I was starting to get an uneasy feeling. “What were his men doing in the compound? You’d think they’d rather be up at the mansion stuffing their faces.”

  “That’s a good point,” Chris said. “There’s nothing down here for them.”

  We spent the next minutes talking about all the strange developments but no one had any insights to offer. Eventually the late hour began to catch up with me. I knew that I had a long day of work ahead and already I was short a couple hours of sleep due to our ‘accident’ with the food shipment that afternoon. After Lout finished bossing me around tomorrow we still had a lot of preparations to complete before we would be ready to attempt our escape. We would only have one shot at it and we couldn’t afford any mistakes. I had to be on top of my game.

  I stood up and stretched. “Well, as fascinating as all this is, I need to get some sleep. So I’ll be saying—”

  Just then the door banged open and the house slaves were hustled inside.

  “All slaves are restricted to quarters until further notice!” one of the guards announced. He slammed the door behind him and we could hear the bolt being thrown from the other side. Although they could lock us in at any time, the door to the slave quarters had always been left unbarred because there was nowhere for us to go. What the hell was going on?

  Mary saw us all sitting together and hurried over to join the group. “There’s trouble up at the mansion. Rabine and that pirate captain are having a big fight. The pirates only brought enough money to pay for part of the drugs and the captain wants Rabine to credit him for the balance.”

  Lucky let out a big whoop. “Rabine must love that! He always works on a strict cash and carry basis.”

  Something wasn’t adding up. “But Cross would know that,” I said. “This doesn’t make any sense. He knows Rabine isn’t going to let him leave here with anything he can’t pay for up front.”

  We all stared at each other for a moment.

  That was when the shooting started outside.

  Alex and I hit the floor at the same time. About half of the others did the same while the rest froze wherever they were.

  “Get down!” I shouted. A stray shot could come through one of the windows at any moment. Soon everyone except for Bobby was following our example. Bobby chose to rush over to the nearest window instead, where he stood transfixed as he stared out into the compound. Muttering under her breath, Alex crawled over to him and yanked him to the floor.

  “It’s a regular war out there!” Bobby said. “The pirates are everywhere! I even saw a bunch of them wearing those armored suits they used to board our prison transport!”

  Armor took time to put on. This had all been planned. Cross had no intention of paying for anything. He was simply going to take the drugs. The street value of what we had loaded aboard his ship easily ran into the hundreds of millions!

  Alex crawled over to me. “This is our chance!”

  I met her eyes and knew exactly what she was thinking because the same thought had occurred to me. This was better than anything we could have planned.

  “Everybody into the showers!” I yelled.

  Staying on our hands and knees, Alex and I led everyone down to the shower room. The shower room was nothing more than a large space next to the kitchen area with a rusty drain in the center of the floor and corroded shower heads projecting from the walls every meter or so. The room was dank and smelled of mildew but it had a few narrow windows that looked out of the back of the building. That would be our way out. With some squeezing most of us were able to fit into the room while the rest huddled on the floor just outside the doorway. As soon as we were all crowded into the relative safety of the showers I stood up so I could address everyone.

  “We have a chance to escape!” I said in as loud a voice as I dared use. “Rabine’s guards and the pirates are too busy fighting each other to worry about us. Now is our chance.”

  “But we can’t get out of the compound!” someone said.

  “We’ve already taken care of that,” I said. That got everyone’s attention. “We managed to shut down a section of the perimeter fence directly behind this building. We can walk right into the forest without our collars being activated!”

  An excited murmuring began.

  “Are you sure?” another voice asked.

  “Absolutely! Mark’s already been through the fence. We know it works. We can all escape if we act right now!”

  At that moment a volley of blaster shots tore through one of the front windows and dug a series of tracks across the ceiling of the shower room, showering us with dust and fragments of broken tile. Without waiting for any more questions I grabbed a small stool with a missing leg that had been propped in one corner and wove through the bodies crouched on the floor to one of the back windows. With a few swift blows I removed all the glass from the frame. A quick check out back showed that everything was clear.

  I sent Bobby, Mark and Chris out through the window first. Between the three of them they managed to move one of the garbage dumpsters under the window to make it easier for the others to climb down.

  “Let’s go!” I said to the others when they were ready.

  I put Alex and Mary in charge to keep everyone moving while I cut into the line and climbed out to check on things outside. Bobby was directing them through the correct section of the fence to where Chris and Mark were gathering everyone together back in the trees. At the rate things were moving, the slave quarters would be empty in a few minutes.

  I crept to the corner to check on what was happening out front. The fighting seemed to be over in the compound, although there were occasional bursts of blaster fire nearby. From what I heard coming from the direction of the mansion however, I could tell that the battle was still raging there. I had a feeling that the pirates were going to find it a little more difficult than they thought to overrun Rabine’s defenses. I had only been up to the mansion a few times, but I had noticed certain things about its construction that were unusual. To begin with, I had spotted a number of cleverly disguised blaster emplacements hidden in the decorative façade. They were positioned so that they could lay down a cross fire on any side of the building. The walls were also unusually thick, undoubtedly armored against attacks from small arms fire. The pirates had their work cut out for them.

  As I knelt by the corner of the building I suddenly got an idea. I was going to throw my own little monkey wrench into the battle. There was no one in sight and I dashed across to the stable and let myself in. I moved quickly from stall to stall and opened each gate. The chaos in the compound had already agitated the horses and as soon as I opened their stalls they bolted for the door.

  The frightened animals scattered in all directions. This would be their chance for freedom too. And hopefully in their panic they would trample a few of the pirates or guards as well. I didn’t really care which.

  As I moved back toward the slave quarters I couldn’t suppress a smile. I was starting to enjoy myself.

  But as I neared the building I could hear several strangled screams coming from the rear. I sprinted around the corner of the building and froze. A number of slaves were rolling on the ground clutching at their throats and crying out while others were kneeling with their fingers laced behind their heads. In the middle of this scene was Lout. He was standing over everyone aiming his collar remote down at the unfortunate group he had on the ground.

  Fury welled up inside me and I darted forward. This sadistic, cowardly bastard was not going to stop us! His back was to me and I don’t think he even knew I was ther
e until I tackled him. The remote went flying out of his hand as he fell. I sat in the small of his back, grabbed fist-fulls of hair with both hands and shoved his face into the mud.

  “Get them out of here!” I shouted.

  From the corner of my eye I saw the slaves Lout had been torturing being helped up as the last of our people escaped through the window. Suddenly I felt a sharp pain in my thigh. Lout had managed to draw a knife and stab me in the leg.

  He threw me off of his back and crawled away, gulping air. I clutched at my leg. It wasn’t a serious wound, but it hurt like hell.

  “You!” Lout said as he turned over.

  We both got to our feet at the same time. Scraping muck off his face, Lout bent into a fighting crouch and shuffled toward me while I circled to my right. He held the weapon like someone experienced with knife fighting. It made sense. Killing with a knife was done up close where you could watch the light fade from your victim’s eyes. It was just the type of thing Lout would enjoy.

  He moved quickly, slashing at my middle, but I evaded the strike and continued to circle. A touch of fear entered his eyes then. I think he expected me to be afraid of him, and I wasn’t. Up to this point I had meekly done whatever he told me to do and had endured his physical and verbal harassment without complaint. Those days were over.

  I noticed his eyes flicking around as if he were searching for something. Then I remembered the remote. He must have realized that he might not be able to take me with his blade alone. The collar remote would once again make him master of the situation. But I wasn’t going to let him have that type of advantage over me.

  I couldn’t afford to waste any more time on him. We had to get to that transport and I couldn’t leave him behind to report our escape to his master. I stopped circling and moved toward him. Lout hesitated, surprised by my sudden boldness. I lunged in that instant. I was already inside the arc of his swing as he tried to strike. I blocked, captured his hand in a wrist lock and twisted. He screamed and dropped the knife. He moved to bring his knee up into my groin but I grabbed him in a bear hug and brought us both down.

  I fought my way on top of him. He managed to land a solid punch to my mouth but I barely felt it. He started raining blows on me wherever he could reach but I kept him pinned and slid my hands up to his throat. My fingers closed like a vise around his neck and I squeezed. His blows became more frantic but I ignored them. And I squeezed. In my mind I was remembering all of the things I had seen him do to different slaves since I had been here–the unnecessary beatings he inflicted on whoever was at hand simply because he was in a foul mood, the laughter in his eyes as he whipped exhausted men and women to keep them working to meet a quota, the torturing with the collar remote over the smallest things, the forced rape of numerous women.

  And I squeezed.

  “Pell, that’s enough! ... Cordass!”

  I came to my senses and realized that Alex was shaking me by the shoulders.

  “That’s enough! It’s over.”

  I looked down. Lout’s neck was twisted at an unnatural angle. His face was purple and his bloated tongue was poking from the corner of his mouth.

  I let go of his throat and stood up. I felt a surge of vindication course through me. I didn’t know if this was the first time I had ever killed, but it was the first time I could remember. It bothered me that I could feel no remorse as I stared down at the sprawled body.

  “Come on, Pell. Let’s go.”

  I took a moment to spit in his face before I followed.